sv winter 2016 - customer development

8/20/2019 SV Winter 2016 - Customer Development

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CUSTOMER DEVELOPMEN

by Maria Mokhnatkina



Very few startups fail for lack of technoloalmost always fail for lack of custome

Eric Ries, “The Lean Startup”



CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK● Customer Discovery

○ Is there a problem to solve?

● Customer Validation○ Does your Product address the need?

○ Are the customers ready to pay?

● Customer Creation○ What are the ways to acquire customers?

○ How to retain the customers?

● Customer Scale○ Can you scale your customer base efficiently.



We focus today

Customer Discovery

○ Is there a problem to solve?

○ Is the problem big enough?

○ What is our potential customer “persona”?



CUSTOMER INTERVIEW



What is it?30-min to 2-hour dialog between researcher and

potential customer / user

NOT

YOU: ask andlisten

CUSTOMER: Talk!

GOAL:

● Understand if there is

a problem and what is

a problem

● Identify “personas” -

potential marketsegments ● “Valida

● Tell Fo

how pr

solved

● Ask ab

solutio5-7 interviews - reveal the problem and personas;

20 enough to validate



What NOT to ask

WRONG:

● Would you use a product which does <features>?

● Will you pay for the product, which <>?

● How much you will pay for the product?

● Do you think if the product works this way, you wi

happy?



What to ask then?

RIGHT:

1. Can you describe me, how you do <context>?2. What’s the hardest part about <thing> ?

3. Can you tell me about last time when you faced <prob

4. Why was that hard?

5. What have you done to solve that problem?

6. What don’t you love about the solutions you’ve tried?

You are drilling down the use-case to revea

problem aspects

You are studying your potential custom

personality



Tips

- Make the customer feel comfortable to open up

- Use audio / video recorder - Iterate : listen, drill down, and make the dialog stay with

context

- Get permission to get in touch again about your solutio

- Ask for intro to other potential customers



After the interview

- Cluster and segment findings- group the findings to reveal several main pain-points

- Prioritize problem aspects- how painful- how often- how valuable would be savior

- Analyse feasibility- do quick analysis if you have enough time and resource to addr

PROBLEM

- Cluster and segment customers- group the customers to reveal market segments

- Create and prioritize “personas”

- persona - imaginary user reflecting your customer segment perso

CUSTOMERS



CUSTOMER SURVEY



Survey goal

Survey is not a good tool to research from scratch.

But it is good to validate findings on larger

potential customer base.

Validate Interview Findings



Survey method



Survey method - simple :)

- Filter to your “personas” types, but include non-personas- to validate your segments

- Ask Choice and Open Questions on problem aspects- to validate your findings

Use interview data to plan the survey



Survey tips & tools

- b2b - 20-30 respondents, b2c - 500-2000

- Still, please, no questions on product and features- Get contacts

- to use same user base to validate your product



SUMMARY



SUMMARY

- Interview to reveal the problems and market segments

- Survey to validate the findings

- Don’t forget to refine and iterate as you move forward

with the product - research never stops!

- ...But don’t get stuck in the “infinite loop”



THE END

sv winter 2016 - customer development

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