PracticalCustomer

Development

Cindy AlvarezDirector of User Experience,Yammer (a Microsoft company)

The “lean startup” is:

• Use of low-cost and free software frameworks and services

• Rapid, iterative development

• Customer development

Customer development doesn’t come naturallyto builders and do-ers

You’re wronghalf the time

At Yammer, nearly 50% of our projects fail to ship because they do not move the intended metrics.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Netflix all agree that at least half of their feature ideas fail too.http://ai.stanford.edu/~ronnyk/ExPThinkWeek2009Public.pdf

Each hour of

saves 5, 10, 20+ hours of

Tools:http://bit.ly/14a30PQ

Customer Development steps:

• Forming a hypothesis

• Finding potential customers to talk to

• Asking the right questions

• Making sense of the answers

• Figuring out what to build to keep learning

• Repeat as needed

Forming a Hypothesis:• Problem, not product

• Testable

• Narrower is better

I believe [type of person]

experiences [problem]while performing [task].

Your potential customer:

Finding potential customers:

• Use your (extended) network

• LinkedIn

• Quora

• Domain-specific websites

• Stores, clubs, and “real world” locations

Templates:http://bit.ly/16K4mhM

Asking the right questions:

• What is the potential customer already doing?

• Frustrations

• Constraints

• How they decide, how they buy, how they use

Getting customers to talk:

• Tell me about the last time…

• 60 seconds of silence

• No “yes/no” questions

• “Other people have told me…”

• Who / What / When / How / Why

Tell me about how you do _________ today…

Do you use any [tools/products/apps/tricks] to help you get ________ done?

If you could wave a magic wand and be able to do anything that you can’t do today, what would it be?

(Don’t worry about if it’s possible)

Last time you did ___________, what were you doing right before you got started?

Once you finished, what did you do after?

Is there anything else about _________ that I should have asked about?

You may be wondering about:

• Compensation for interviewees

• On-site, face-to-face, phone, other?

• Should I record?

• Who needs to interview?

• What if the customer isn’t useful?

Making sense of what you hear:

• Validates

• Invalidates

• Surprises

• Emotion

What to build next:• What is your biggest risk?

• (Use the magic wand on yourself)

• MVPs are not scalable!

MVPs for learning can be:

• Concierge MVP

• “Wizard of Oz” MVP

• Single use case MVP

• Pre-order (“vaporware”) MVP

• Other peoples’ products

Pick your metrics (for example):

• X% increase in signup conversions

• Y% decrease in time between signup and successful task completion

• Customer reports qualitative data

You can ask questions anytime!

cindy@cindyalvarez.com or @cindyalvarez

(also stay tuned for Lean Customer Development)