I Asked 50 Entrepreneurs to Explain Why Fire Trucks Are Red and School Busses Are Yellow — None Could Do It
By: Aaron Dinin
Tags: Founders, Business, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur, Startup

Fire trucks, school busses, and entrepreneurship

Shortly after I’d done my research into school busses and fire trucks, I had to teach one of my entrepreneurship classes. Armed with my research of fire trucks and school busses, I started class by asking my students the same question my daughter asked me earlier that morning: “Why are fire trucks red?”

A few hands went up. I called on someone to answer. “I think they’re red because that makes them easier to see,” said one of my students.

“Good guess,” I said. “Does anyone have a different answer? Or does that seem right to the rest of you.” Everyone nodded in agreement.

It was my turn to trick them, just like my daughter had tricked me. “Okay,” I continued, “but if fire trucks are red to make them easier to see, then why are school busses yellow?”

After a few moments of silence, the same student I’d originally called on raised her hand again. “Is it because yellow also makes vehicles easier to see?” she guessed.

“That’s right,” I said. Then I explained what I’d researched about the colors of fire trucks and school busses. After I finished telling them where the colors came from, I told my students about the attempt to change the colors of fire trucks and how it didn’t work.

“I’m sure you’re all wondering why we’re talking about the colors of school busses and fire trucks,” I said after giving them all the information I’ve given you. “We’re talking about these things because I think there’s an important entrepreneurial lesson in all of this, and I want to see if you can figure it out.

“Now that you know school busses and fire trucks are yellow and red, respectively, in order to help with visibility, and you know yellow is better than red but fire trucks are red anyway because that’s what people expect, what important lesson does that teach you about entrepreneurship?”

The class sat quietly for a while. I’d stumped them, just as I’d hoped. When it was clear nobody had an answer, I finally explained: “As entrepreneurs,” I said, “we tend to assume that the best way to compete in a market is to build some sort of objectively better solution. In other words, most people believe product efficacy is critical to entrepreneurial success. But the color of fire trucks tells a different story. On a scientific level, red isn’t the best color if the goal is to make fire trucks more visible. But that doesn’t matter because people expect fire trucks to be red, so red is a more effective color for fire trucks even if, objectively, it’s not the better option. Knowing this, what does it tell you about consumer buying habits?”

The same student who’d answered my other questions raised her hand again, so I called on her a third time. “It tells us that consumer expectations and beliefs are more important in the buying process than any quantitative measures of better or worse.”

“Exactly,” I said. “In the real world — the world in which entrepreneurs operate — objective truth doesn’t matter. Heck, it doesn’t even exist. What matters is the expectations of our target audience. You have to meet your audience where they are and build on top of that knowledge, otherwise you risk doing more harm than good.”

Then I showed the following photos of an old fire truck and a modern fire truck on the classroom projector:

“And by the way,” I added, “That’s why, even though most people imagine fire trucks as being red, modern fire trucks aren’t actually just red anymore. They’re two-toned. They’re red-enough to be recognizable as fire trucks, but then they have a secondary color that better reflects light at night.”

In other words, rather than completely ignoring existing expectations about what fire trucks should look like, fire departments have learned they need to build on top of those existing expectations. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to learn to do the same thing.