You don’t have enough data to make certain decisions, right? Important decisions like pricing should ideally be modeled first and tried out in safe conditions. The resulting data will then tell you whether that decision is a good one or not.
Here’s a truth bomb though: in the open market, there is never enough data to be certain, and even worse more data doesn’t always help.
Data is useful for experiments, but economics is notoriously chaotic, and what worked a few months ago is pretty likely (but not entirely) not to work tomorrow.
If you want to know more about what I mean by “chaotic”, click here. I’m using the famous Cynefin framework created by Dave Snowden, and it’s fascinating stuff.
If you are wondering what the point of this message is, it’s simple: don’t wait for more data, you don’t need it and it won’t help. Use what data you can easily get because that’s exactly what your clients will do when they try and see if your price is reasonable or not.
After all, whose behavior are you trying to predict when they see your price, your or theirs? And even if you arm yourself with all necessary data, can you count on clients to have all that in their heads when they are making the purchasing decision? Of course not.
So, welcome to the data desert, learn to love the uncertainty, and don’t worry. Nobody else has the data either, and that’s ok.