Marie Gervais – The Value of Your Worst Investment Is the Learning

Jun 21, 2021

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BIO: Marie Gervais, PhD., CEO of Shift Management, offers targeted supervisory and middle management training, team coaching, and organizational capacity development to businesses and organizations.

STORY: Marie had the fantastic idea of developing a management decision-making gaming app. She pitched the idea to a few decision-makers within her industry, and they assured her it was a great idea. Marie had no experience in tech and did zero research on app development before she started working on the app. This saw her lose over $140,000 in an idea that never materialized due to her inexperience.

LEARNING: Do thorough market research, take calculated risks, and never go to market before validating your idea with a few paying customers. If a situation is not working out, walk away and carry the lessons with you.

“I discovered all the gifts that I learned from this mistake, and I started to dig my way out of the shame.”

Marie Gervais

Guest profile

Marie Gervais, PhD., CEO of Shift Management, offers targeted supervisory and middle management training, team coaching, and organizational capacity development to businesses and organizations. She has developed an award-winning program using online courses and live web coaching to help managers develop the confidence and skills they need to lead.

For a competitive advantage, a clear focus on communication and conflict resolution skills will get you there. You can build a healthy, inclusive ‘best in industry’ work culture. Dr. Gervais is your guide to success. Her upcoming book “The Spirit of Work” is scheduled for publication in November 2021.

She is the host of the Culture and Leadership Connections Podcast.

Worst investment ever

A couple of years ago, Marie realized that everything was going towards gamification. She got interested in games for learning. She then had an idea to create a gaming app for managers, something like a management decision-making app.

At the time, Marie was a member of one of the manufacturing industry networks for C suite manufacturing decision-makers. She pitched her idea to some of the members, and they all said it was a great idea; it was something they could really use.

Hitting the ground running

Marie started planning how to bring her idea to life. She had never created a game before, so she started thinking about what she would do and how to practice doing that. She figured she’d start with the management decision-making app and then move into the game. Then she’d pitch her app to decision-makers who would send her to their training and development people and finally start piloting it and see how that goes.

So again, Marie pitched to the group, and they told her that’s a great idea and gave her a few tips which she thought were helpful. They asked her to come back to them when she finished the app.

Burying herself in the app creation

Marie was heavily invested in the phone app and spent over $140,000. She faced a lot of hurdles while creating it. She went to a technology company that didn’t know what they were doing with that particular type of game. She went to another company, and they didn’t have the skills either. So she switched to a third one and lost more money. The whole thing was just a big money-sucking hole.

Pulling the plug

Marie realized that she didn’t have the necessary experience to find the right people; she didn’t understand the tech process or the phases of development. Her biggest mistake was going with the idea first rather than research.

Marie lost business due to that single focus, and it was when she decided to pull the plug.

Lessons learned

Take calculated risks

Always take calculated risks and do proper market research. Once you start working on a product, be very careful about each step of the way and test every point with potential clients willing to pay for your product.

Andrew’s takeaways

Read, read, read

Become an avid reader in the area you want to invest in. The more you read, the more you will learn and become better.

Customers are the best way to validate an idea

The best way to validate your idea is to get people to pay you cash. People may tell you an idea is great, but are they ready to put money where their mouths are?

It is ok to walk away from a failed project

If you’re stuck in a situation where you have sunk in a lot of money and a lot of energy, but you realize it may not work, it is ok to walk away from it. It may be painful to walk away, but you will always come out with a huge amount of learning, which is priceless.

Actionable advice

Develop a relationship with somebody who has the knowledge you need over time and learn from them.

No. 1 goal for the next 12 months

Marie’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to get her book published and out in the world. She also plans to have some speaking engagements around the book so that people can learn from it.