Module 3: Your Customer

Introduction Defining the specific outcomes that target customers want to achieve is one of the most critical first steps in startup product development. Doing so provides much-needed clarity and direction while avoiding many problems associated with vague, ambiguous outcomes that often arise later. Without a deep understanding of what customers want to accomplish, startups risk … Continue reading Articulating Customer Outcomes and Key Behaviors: A Pre-Product Roadmap

Introduction Establishing and nurturing strong business relationships is crucial for the long-term success of any B2B company. Customer discovery is vital in this process, helping you understand your target market, identify key decision-makers, and develop meaningful connections. In this blog post, I outline the essential steps for B2B customer discovery that can pave the way … Continue reading Essential Steps for B2B Customer Discovery: Building Sustainable Business Relations

Introduction In the past, I highlighted the role that design thinking plays in problem identification and solution design. Within the design thinking approach, several tools and practices are helpful to entrepreneurs as they seek an optimal solution for customers. These tools support the development, articulation, and documentation of your early assumptions about the customer's experience … Continue reading Journey into the Customer’s Mind: Using Experience Maps for Behavioral Insight

Introduction Amidst pressure to be everything for everyone, startups must zealously prioritize solving a small number of customer needs exceptionally well. This condition mandates distinguishing between customer outcomes - the specific results customers seek - and product benefits that enable those outcomes. Maintaining this delineation when interviewing customers, testing solutions, and structuring messaging boost your … Continue reading Unlocking Customer Outcomes: The Key to Startup Success

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