As entrepreneurs, product developers, and innovators, we tend to get caught up in the technical functionality of our solutions. As I have stated before in this blog, founders tend to be enamored with their conception of the customer's solution rather than the problem itself. Many innovators begin by thinking about the functionality of their proposed … Continue reading Starting with Customer Outcomes
Over the next couple of posts, I want to elaborate on ways to prepare for designing an effective solution for your customer. Starting with a design thinking approach, you will learn how to develop a deeper understanding of the customer's experience as they try to solve a specific problem or complete a job to be … Continue reading Design Thinking: From Empathy to Insight
In this post, we continue to look at how startup and early venture founders can best understand the competitive landscape that they plan to enter soon. In the last post, I described how to identify organizations that provide your target customers with direct or indirect solutions. Once identified, you begin to conduct an in-depth analysis of … Continue reading Deep Dive into Your Competitors (Part Two)
This post reviews the tools you can use to conduct a deeper look at your competition. It takes several steps to understand your competition better and how they position themselves in the marketplace. The first step is to identify your direct and indirect competitors. The following step is to conduct an in-depth review of each … Continue reading Deep Dive into Your Competitors (Part One)
Studying your competition is an ongoing pursuit in the entrepreneurial context. It is not something you do sporadically. Throughout the venture realization process, you identify and monitor all major and emerging competitors. You determine their strengths and weaknesses and consider how they will react to every one of your strategic moves. What some call competitive … Continue reading Identify Competitive Solutions to Your Customers’ Problems
An integral part of determining the attractiveness of a new venture opportunity is looking at your market's size. Throughout the venture realization process, you will have multiple opportunities to better assess the number of potential customers you have in any given marketplace. You will fine-tune your understanding of who your customer is and how many … Continue reading Estimating Your Market Size
Deciding on which customers you should focus on as you launch your venture is an important decision. Getting this right can be the difference between the success or failure of your venture. Early in the venture realization process, you define who your potential customers are and whether they need your solution enough to pay for … Continue reading Selecting Your Early Customers
While interviewing customers is a preferred method for early customer discovery, there are many reasons to consider using a survey or questionnaire to solicit customer information about the problem, current solutions, and desired benefits. One of the significant benefits of online surveys is the ability to reach large numbers of customers in a relatively short … Continue reading Customer Discovery: Surveying Early Customers
Introduction to Customer Discovery There are two stages of customer discovery in the venture realization process: 1) problem experience and; 2) solution experience. In the early stage of customer discovery, you are looking to validate assumptions about whether your venture idea is something specific customers need, want, and are willing to purchase. These assumptions are … Continue reading Customer Discovery: Early Interviews
See an Opportunity? Now What? You have an idea and are excited to start a new venture. Now what? As you begin to formulate the concept, you will want to conduct a preliminary assessment of the potential opportunity. There are several issues to address to determine whether a new venture idea is worth pursuing. No … Continue reading See an Opportunity? Now What?
Venture for All®️ LLC 