Who will buy that? Understanding Customer Discovery Todd Stave, CEO Mobile Comfort Inc. Blue Bear Management, LLC
Customer Discovery Determine the market viability of your product. Who will pay for your technology? Determine if your product is ready to for the market. What is the feature set of the MVP Determine if you have the right team and partner channels to get your product into the hands of buyers
Marketing 101 For a product to sell People must PERCIEVE it is better It must be better enough for people pay for it It must be better enough for people to change their current way of doing things It must be available The right people have to know it exists 3
The Right People Decision Makers Payers Influencers Users Saboteurs 4
Business Model Canvas
Value Proposition: What does your technology provide that current offerings do not? Why will people want to you use your product? Will they want to use it enough to pay money for it? Will they want to use it enough to change their established behavior? What are you displacing with your technology?
The answer to the question is your hypothesis You now need to collect data to support, disprove, or modify You need to start talking with your potential customers, suppliers, and channel partners Interviews are uncomfortable and time consuming….. DO NOT DELIGATE! You need to have a trusted and vested team member take the lead Be ready to listen and hear things that you do not agree with
Go talk to strangers Find a lot of them. The larger your sample size the better. It should be at least 100 and 200 is better Be neutral. If you hear things you don’t like or don’t expect that is ok. DON’T correct them or argue Listen to them. They may start going off topic. That is also good. Follow their train of thought and stay with it, especially if other interviewees went in that direction. Take notes or, with permission, record the interview Revise your questions if needed. Revise your target audience if needed This is not an easy thing to do. Not everyone is comfortable taking with strangers or asking for other people’s time and opinion. Some people do not want to hear negative things about their work.
Interview Questions This is not a multiple choice survey This is not a random survey, write questions for your intended target market Keep questions open ended and Not leading Do not talk about how it works. People are not interested in why it works only the benefits. If possible, keep the questions on the edge of your technology Follow tangents and modify questions for future interviews if more than one person goes off topic on the same path ….. ie Hot flashes As the interview progresses start revealing your technology Start asking more targeted questions about the device, features, price they would pay, how they might use it, what features would they like to see in it Ask if there is anything that you did not ask Ask if there is anyone they know you should talk to about your technology and if they could make an introduction.
What to do with the data? Is your technology ready? What did you hear from your survey? Do you need to make changes before you have an MVP What are people willing to pay for it? How big is your target market? Can you produce it for a lot less (1/4) than people are willing to pay? Should you abandon the idea all together? Do you need a major pivot? These can be difficult questions to answer truthfully!
Can you scale the technology into a business Do you have a good business team with you? Do you have the funding? Can you produce and distribute? Do you have IP protection?
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