Am I About to Soar or Crash?

Quick Introduction to

Customer Development

Interviews

January Indianapolis Lean Startup Circle Meetup

by Frank Dale

Ever tried. Ever failed.

No matter. Try again.

Fail again. Fail better.

- Samuel Beckett

Goal is to validate

or invalidate

Hypothesis

Test Our Vision Against The Market

Some Use Cases

Problem Discovery

Solution Validation

Message Testing

Understand Decision Process

Why You Probably Won’t Do Them?

You love your idea too much

You don’t want to be “wrong”

It makes you uncomfortable

It takes too much time

If you are ready to try…

Identify the hypothesis you want to test:

Write Them Down

vWrite 4-5 Open Ended Ques. That Align to Each Hypothesis

What

How

Why

Who

Problem Discovery &

Solution Validation

Should Be

Separate Interviews

Find People You Don’t Know

Let them know you are doing research.

Speak only with a stated purpose.

If you ask for 15 minutes, you will get 30.

Ask for 30 minutes and you get 45.

Make it feel like a conversation not an interview:

Gather demographics if appropriate “Tell me about yourself…”

Engage in “small talk” to get them to relax (yes, it works)

BE CURIOUS

Open-ended questions help make it a conversation

Probe for behavior

Let them in/validate don’t lead them to your desired conclusion

If possible, bring a co-pilot

A second opinion helps preventConfirmation Bias

Take notes

At the end, ask if you can contact them again to follow-up

Thanks to the photographers for sharing!

All photos used under a Creative Commons License

Credits

1. “IMG_1427” by Liam Ryan http://www.flickr.com/photos/liam_ryan/2205258640/2. “20070919_001” by RadialMonster http://www.flickr.com/photos/radialmonster/1436548828/3. “Going Down” by Motograf http://www.flickr.com/photos/motograf/939192240/4. “Goal” by Robert Van Hilten http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogodoun/2059275363/5. “Sunset at Snowbird” by Frank Dale6. -7. “Roadside Sign on the Ring of Dingle” by Frank Dale8. CHF’s Library by Geekadelphia http://www.flickr.com/photos/geekadelphia/2781333941/9. “leaping” by beccaplusmolly http://www.flickr.com/photos/beccaplusmolly/3286709587/10. “Holmes” by GrahamC 99 http://www.flickr.com/photos/schnappi/2321628609/sizes/o/in/photostream/ 11. “Flickr Handwriting Meme” by Zadi Diaz http://www.flickr.com/photos/karmagrrrl/3196441086/12. -13. “The Fork in the Road” by i_yudai http://www.flickr.com/photos/y_i/2330044065/ 14. “Crowd” by Marc Wathieu http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcwathieu/4102945874/15. “Ask for Peace” by Ask? http://www.flickr.com/photos/ask-for-peace/1824414133/16. “Costa Conversation” by Lovestruck http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovestruck94/4080022888/17. “Curious Canine” by mpantluce http://www.flickr.com/photos/uncommonly_common/3602846134/18. “Happy Co-Pilots” by Randy Cox http://www.flickr.com/photos/randycox/303968489/19. “Nice Follow-Through!” by Dean6921 http://www.flickr.com/photos/33294494@N05/4667439962/

Resource List for Further Study

Books:

“The Four Steps to the Epiphany” by Steve Blank

“Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits

“Running Lean” by Ash Maurya

Blog Posts:

“Tips for B2B Customer Development Interviews” by Sean Murphy

“12 Tips for Early Customer Development Interviews (revised)” by Giff Constable