Doing customer development (and stop wasting your time)

Hans van Gent - @jcvangent
Doing 
Customer Development
(and stop wasting your time)

Why bother talking to
people
(when you could be building)
image by xensin

’Most startups fail due not to the failure of
product development but due to the lack of
customers’
Steve Blank - @sgblank

So do you know
what the most
dangerous
word in startups is?

With this word
You are making decisions in a vacuum.

With this word
You can take action for years, and end up
nowhere.

The most
dangerous
word in startups

about potential customers,
about potential problems,
about potential solutions.
Assumptions

Assumptions
about potential customers
image by epsos

Personas
are fictional characters created to represent
the different user types within a targeted
demographic, attitude and/or behaviour set
that might use a site, brand or product in a
similar way.

Personas
A persona is a kind of an imaginary person with
a name, history, and story who has a way of
doing things.

Personas
A persona should have enough psychological
detail to allow you to conveniently step over to
the persona’s view and see your products and
services from her perspective.

Personas
A persona can function almost like another
person in the room when making a decision—It is
“Magnus.” He looks at what you’re doing from
his particular and very specific vantage point,
and points out flaws and benefits for him.

Describe a stereotypical customer
as detailed as possible
Facts & demographics
• Name, Gender, Age, Education, Occupation…
Behaviours
• What books does he/she read? What's he/she
already doing to solve the problem you want to
solve for him/her?
Problem & needs
• What are her points of pain as HE/SHE thinks
about them? What product or service, similar to
yours, is he/she using but unsatisfied with? Then,
what problem is he/she trying to solve with that?
What challenges keeps him/her up at night trying
to google the answer?
Goals & dreams
• What is he/she trying to accomplish? What is
most important to him/her?
icon by Paulo Sá Ferreira

Places
• Where (online and offline) can you find him/her?
Forums? Comment sections of which blogs?
Social networks? Meetups? LinkedIn, Facebook,
Google Groups?
Key influencers
• Who does he/she trust as a thought leader? Who
knows a lot of your customers and can introduce
you to them?
icon by Paulo Sá Ferreira
Describe a stereotypical customer
as detailed as possible

Check out http://personapp.io/

Questions to ask
when developing personas
#1 What is their demographic information?

Questions to ask
#2 What kind of job do they have?

Questions to ask
#3 What does a day in their life look like?

Questions to ask
#4 What do they value most?
What are their goals?

Questions to ask
#4 What do they value most?
What are their goals?
#5 Where do they get their information?

Assumptions
about potential problems / solutions
image by edouardv66

Paul Graham - @paulg
“Build something people want!”

By talking to people you can find
out about their problems.

But it’s super easy
to screw up these
conversations.
icon by Stefano Vetere

Henry Ford
’If I had asked people what they wanted, they
would have said faster horses.’

Anybody will say your idea is great
if you annoy them for long enough.

A man wakes up, turns on the
radio, goes upstairs, turns on the
lights, and kills himself.
Why?
image by Spirit_of_69
(Note: this slide, and several other, are accompanied by a mini-workshop which is really hard to replicate
without being in the room. If you want to bring me in-house and hear the punchline, ping @jcvangent)

image by wstryder
(Note: this slide, and several other, are accompanied by a mini-workshop which is really hard to replicate
without being in the room. If you want to bring me in-house and hear the punchline, ping @jcvangent)

#1 Use a script or survey
Three ways to horrible screw up
customer development

Always know your big 3
questions
Don’t stress to much about choosing the “right” important
questions. They will change. Just choose the 3 questions which
seem murkiest or most important right now. Doing so will give
you a firmer footing and a better sense of direction for your
next 3.
Knowing your list allows you to take better advantage of
serendipitous encounters.

Questions to dig into feature requests
# Why do you want that?
# What would that let you do?
# How are you coping without it?
#Do you think we should push back the launch date, add that
feature, or is it something we can add later?
# How would that fit into your day?

Questions to dig into emotional signals
# Tell me more about that.
# That seems to really bug you - I bet there’s a story here.
# What makes it so awful?
# Why haven’t you been able to fix this already?
# You seem pretty excited about that - it’s a big deal?
# Why so happy?
# Go on.

Softball and anchor questions
How’s it going with..?
Interesting: tell me more about that..
Can we go back to what you were saying about..?

#2 Talk about your idea

Dear mom,
 
Don’t you think my idea is great?
Love,
your son.

Not just your mom lies.
People want to be helpful, so they tell you what
they think you want to hear.

The mom test
www.momtestbook.com
Rob Fitzpatrick- @robfitz

The mom test
• Never ask their opinion, especially about
your idea
• Ask about their life
• Ask about specifics in the past  
(“talk me through the last time you…”)
• Talk less and listen more

Good or bad questions
Inspiration: the mom test

“Do you think it’s a good
idea?”
Me

“Do you think it’s a good
idea?”

“Would you buy a product
which solved this
problem?”
Me

“Would you buy a product
which solved this
problem?”

“How do you currently deal
with this problem?”
Me

“How do you currently deal
with this problem?”

“When does this problem
pop-up?”
Me

“When does this problem
pop-up?”

“What makes this time
consuming and go off
track?”
Me

“What makes this time
consuming and go off
track?”

“Has this ever been more
time consuming or gone of
track more than normal?”

“Please tell me how…I’m
trying to learn from you..”
Me

“Please tell me how…I’m
trying to learn from you..”

“Talk me through the last
time you had this problem”

“What did you try to do
about it?”
Me

“What did you try to do
about it?”

“How much would you pay
for this?"
Me

“How much would you pay
for this?"

“How much money does
this problem cost you?”

So we just had a meeting
But did we make progress?

“Sound great. I love it!”
Emma

“Brilliant — let me know
when it launches!”
Jeremy

“Brilliant — let me know
when it launches!”

Compliment
+ Stalling tactic
They don’t care

“There are a couple people
I can intro you to, when
you’re ready”
Jeremy

“There are a couple people
I can intro you to, when
you’re ready”

Partial commitment
(is there a valid reason he can’t connect you
now)

“I would definitely buy
that!”
Emma

Danger!!!
(a promising signal, but people can’t predict
their own behaviour)

#2 Talk about your idea
#3 Sell

Be an apprentice, not a sales person.

Recording interviews
#1 Write in their words, not yours
#2 One phrase per card / sticky note
#3 Pair. One interviewer, one note keeper

Slide by: http://www.foundercentric.com/

Check out http://www.custdevcards.com/

Running the process
(Note: these are another set of workshop slides as taught during Evolv Weekend, ping @jcvangent for more info)

Customer
Hypotheses
Problem / Pain
Hypotheses
Riskiest
Asumptions
Minimum
Success
Criteria
Experiments
Results
Solution
Hypotheses
Get out of the building and test
Define riskiest assumptions and experiments
Progress Report Board team:
Progress Report Board v1.2
Progress Report Board team:
First validate that your
customer has a problem
Then, state what your assumption
is of the ideal soluotion, and build your
experiments to validate those assumptions
Fill in your persona sheets and
refer to those, you can give them
names to match their personality
Of all the assumptions you have,
state the one, which if proved wrong,
will invalidate the whole business
Design an experiment which will
(in)validate the riskiest assumption
most efficiently
Call the criteria the results need to
meet for the assumption to
be validated
State the results of the experiment
compared to the criteria, and thus if
it’s validated or invalidated, and if
you’re going to pivot, iterate or
persevere
Inform us on the problems your
customer or persona is having and
how severe those pains are
according to you

Doing customer development (and stop wasting your time)

Who is your customer? Be as specific as possible.
(time limit: 5 minutes)
Customer Hypothesis

What is the problem? Phrase it from your customers
perspective.
Problem / Pain Hypothesis

Define a solution only after you have validated a problem
worth solving.
Solution Hypothesis

List the assumptions which must hold true, for your hypothesis
to be true
Riskiest assumptions

What are your 3 big questions? .
(time limit: 5 minutes per interview)
Experiments

Call the criteria the results need to meet for the assumption
to be validated.
Minimum Success Criteria

State the results of the experiment compared to the criteria,
and thus if it’s validated or invalidated, and if you’re going to
pivot, iterate or persevere.
Result

There are no facts inside
the building..

Let’s talk
http://www.jcvangent.com/
by Hans van Gent / @jcvangent

Doing customer development (and stop wasting your time)

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