Customer  Development

Lessons  Learned  Founding  @makersacademy

Customer  Development  is  Not:

1. A  way  to  get  people  to  tell  you  what  to  build.  2. A  way  for  you  to  stroke  your  confirmaDon  bias.  3. A  way  to  build  a  checklist  of  feature  requests.  

The  Problem

1. What  are  your  3  biggest  problems  right  now?  2. What  do  you  do  to  solve  those  problems?  3. For  each  problem,  if  you  could  wave  a  magic  

wand  and  the  problem  would  be  solved,  what  would  that  soluDon  look  like?

The  SoluDon4.  Why  is  this  problem  important  to  solve?  How  much  does  this  problem  cost  you?  (in  terms  of  lost  revenue,  lost  customers,  lost  Dme,  frustraDon,  etc.)  !5.  Present  your  soluDon  with  a  lot  of  customer  prompDng.  Day  in  the  life  of  your  customer  before  and  aRer  your  soluDon.  Ask  how  your  soluDon  compares  to  their  exisDng  soluDon.  (Keep  track  of  every  quesDon  they  ask.)  

The  SoluDon

6.  Price  Anchoring  Strategy  !7.  Get  the  customer’s  buy  in.  Purchase  Order  is  best,  signed  leZer  of  intent  is  acceptable.  No  commitment  is  worthless,  regardless  of  what  they  say.

General  Guidelines

• Every  experiment  should  have  a  possibility  of  being  proven  false  

• Ask  objecDve  quesDons  that  measure  things,  not  opinions  (“how  much  are  you  willing  to  pay?”  is  a  crap  quesDon)  

• Every  quesDon  you  ask  should  pass  the  “mom  test”  • Try  to  watch  out  for  people  “foaming  at  the  mouth”  • Ask  for  referrals  at  the  end  of  every  interview