Curated resources to learn about customer development / discovery.
The Power of Curiosity and Empathy for Customer Discovery.
Read the following articles to learn why Customer Discovery / Product-Market Fit is very important for Entrepreneurs:
1. How Slack Grew from 0 to $17 Billion in Only 5 Years, Richard Liu, Yought Blog / Medium
2. I Wasted $40,000 on a Fantastic Startup Idea: When Good Ideas Make for Bad Business, Tom Cleveland, Medium
1. How Slack Grew from 0 to $17 Billion in Only 5 Years, Richard Liu, Yought Blog / Medium
2. I Wasted $40,000 on a Fantastic Startup Idea: When Good Ideas Make for Bad Business, Tom Cleveland, Medium
- Customer Development (aka customer discovery)
- Product/Market Fit, Wikipedia
- What is Product/Market Fit, MailChimp
- The SuperHuman Product/Market Fit Engine, Rahul Votra
- 12 Things About Product/Market Fit, Andreesen Horowitz
- 10 Questions Product Managers Should Ask Customers
- Customer Discovery: Best Practices (Videos)
- E-Commerce Customer Interviews: How to Collect Actionable Feedback
- Steve Blank - Stanford Prof. and serial entrepreneur
- The Path to Epiphany, by Steve Blank (Book, 45 pp.)
- The Path to Epiphany: The Customer Development Model (Chapter 2, 10 pp.) - from the Four Steps to Epiphany, Steve Blank, Cafe Press, 2005
- The New Mindset for Product/Market Fit, Gigi Levy-Weiss, NfX- very good!
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- Pivots: Why Most Startups Fail at Finding Product-Market Fit, MaRS Library
- Pivoting: Case Studies (PayPal, Flickr and YouTube, MaRS Library
- The Top 10 Pivots of All Time
- Go To Market-Fit: The Missing Link to Scaling and Enterprise Growth
- Startup Founders - Put on Your (Discovery, Listening) and Sales Hat, Michael Alter, Univ. of Chicago-Booth
- Talking to Humans (PDF), Giff Constable
- Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything, Steve Blank, Harvard Business Review, 2013
The "Gist" - Why is CD Useful + Important?
Screenshot of Innovation Within's Discovery Platform, using Alex Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas.
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A Business Model Canvas is a series of guesses / ideas / hypotheses
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Until you actually talk to a Customer (or, a representative group of customers), the business / marketing / financial plan are simply 'words on the page' - not proven. These words are forecasts - of what you believe / hope will happen. They are guesses / ideas / hypotheses that need to be validated or tested.
Through 1-1 interviews with Customers (i.e., qualitative research), entrepreneurs get "Insights", and the Evidence required to develop confidence in the results - to support a Go / No Go Decision; an investment; iterating or pivoting their business model.
Steve Blank says - that, 'BEFORE one develops a website, invests any money or even a prototype, they need to do "customer development / discovery" - because this will help them UNDERSTAND what the customer truly needs, wants and desires; his/her needs; and is willing to pay for. This last point is also important: Is the market size Big Enough to make it Worth Pursuing.
This is typically a Big Gap / Missing Link in many entrepreneurship education programs and activities. It's an important skill to be taught - but rarely is. That's why programs like the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (I-Corps) below are so useful (see below).
Our Customer Discovery Coaching is based on the I-Corps program and Randy Fisher's 20+ years of experience working with innovative leaders, startups and entrepreneurs.
Through 1-1 interviews with Customers (i.e., qualitative research), entrepreneurs get "Insights", and the Evidence required to develop confidence in the results - to support a Go / No Go Decision; an investment; iterating or pivoting their business model.
Steve Blank says - that, 'BEFORE one develops a website, invests any money or even a prototype, they need to do "customer development / discovery" - because this will help them UNDERSTAND what the customer truly needs, wants and desires; his/her needs; and is willing to pay for. This last point is also important: Is the market size Big Enough to make it Worth Pursuing.
This is typically a Big Gap / Missing Link in many entrepreneurship education programs and activities. It's an important skill to be taught - but rarely is. That's why programs like the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (I-Corps) below are so useful (see below).
Our Customer Discovery Coaching is based on the I-Corps program and Randy Fisher's 20+ years of experience working with innovative leaders, startups and entrepreneurs.
NSF Innovation I-Corps Program
- National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program - nodes & sites
- Rutgers University I-Corps Program (Office of Economic Development)
- Stanford Engineering Class (ENG 245) - Lean LaunchPad Video
- VentureWell.org
- Innovator Spotlight: Marcely Ramirez Hernandez, BurnFlex (1st place winner, VentureWell's OPEN Minds Showcase, 2019)
Starter Questions
- What are your Top 3 Challenges / Pain Points you face in your job?
- How have you dealt with / solved Problem X?
- Dig deeper into your Customers' typical day - anything that sounds painful, time-consuming or expensive.
- After asking these questions, make sure to go deeper, probing and listening for answers and insights.
- If you had a magic wand for a solution to any of these problems - what would it be?
- Can you introduce / refer me to someone else?
- May I keep in touch?
Innovation
- Here's What's Wrong with Your Great Idea, Inc. Magazine
- When Bigger Organizations Want to Innovate (internally or acquire startups)
- Transforming Legacy Organizations: Turn Your Established Business into an Innovation Champion
- Innovation @ 50x in Companies and Government Agencies (Steve Blank)
- Why Digital Health Startups Keep Failing, Fast Company
Raising Money from Investors
The New Mindset for Product/Market Fit, NfX
Go-To-Market
- In Bangladesh, Everything is Bought and Sold Through Facebook (Thanks John A. Fraser!)
- High Value Sales Enablement
- Why Advertising on Social Media is No Nirvana (Unicorn, an Electric Scooter from Tile co-founder Shuts Down, Offers No Refunds)
- 3 Marketing Funnel Examples, Elizabeth Yin
- PitchBook's 50+ Tech Industry Verticals (for investment)
- SaaS Metrics 2.0: A Guide to Improving and Measuring What Matters (very good)
- Customer Churn and the 3-Year Death Spiral in SaaS Companies
- Yes, Freemium Businesses Need Salespeople, HBR
- The Step-By-Step Guide to Sales-Marketing Alignment for B2B
- The New Mindset for Product/Market Fit, Gigi Levy-Weiss, Nfx- very good!
- Should your SaaS startup embrace a bottom-up GTM strategy?, TechCrunch
- To measure sales efficiency SaaS startups should use the 4x2, TechCrunch
Pivoting
Also of Interest
- 12 Voice of the Customer (VoC) Methodologies
- 17 Templates to Help You Put the Customer First
- A Complete Guide to Startup Advisors and Mentors
- Holloway Guide to Equity Compensation
- Startups Don't Have to Fail, Irwin Stein
- Case Study in Lean Philanthropy, Eric Ries
- How to Sell Value in a Transactional Relationship
- 5 People Who Can Help Strengthen Your Empathy Muscle, New York Times
- Building Brand Intimacy: How to Emotionally Connect with Customers
- Understanding the Emotional Drivers Behind Customer Experience
- The New Science of Customer Emotions, HBR
- Taking Myself Off AutoPilot: Jordan Dutchak
- Startup Advisors: How Much Compensation / Equity to Give
- Alignment - Why Startups Need Guiding Principles & How to Make Them Work
- Prepare for Your Google Interview (YouTube)
- Elizabeth Yin blog, Hustle VC Co-Founder
- The Hidden Patterns of Startup Failure, NfX - very good!
- NfX Founder Library - Excellent!