Sometimes startups come to me with this problem: we have created this great service, how can we get our first customers.
Those startups quite often need to put a hold on product development and focus customer development.
What they don’t actually know is:
– are they addressing a real, existing problem or a burning need ?
– does their service or product actually solve the problem – to the eyes of their target customers (or to their wallets should I say).
Answering those questions with genuine insight from real people is what customer development is.
Here is how to do it. It look and sound easy can be very tricky as it’s goes against a lot of expected cultural and social behaviours.
Find 10 potential customers from the target group and understand if the problem you are solving is a big pain or they dont really care.
For each customer understand where they stand:
- Did they have the problem ?
- Did they know they have the problem ?
- Did they look for a solution ?
- Did they hack a solution ?
- Did they pay for a solution ?
Achtung! Don’t ask them those questions. Have a conversation – not an interview – about the problem you are trying to solve and understand how they are solving it today. At the end, categorize them into the buckets above.
Once this is clear, the question is, how do I find those 10 potential customers ?
Be creative, try different methods. Which ever method works best can later become one of you marketing / communication channel. Drop the one that dont work. If you can’t find those first 10 customers, how are going to find 100s of them ?
If your product solves the problem, the people that you identified as paying for a solution (the last bucket) are your potential customers. You can start selling it to them.