Customer Development

Customer Development

1. Customer Validation

   • The market is saleable and large enough that a viable business might be built

2. Company Creation

   • The business is scalable through a repeatable sales and marketing roadmap (

3. Company Building

   • Company departments and operational processes are created to support scale

4. Three Levels of Learning

   • Understanding the philosophy.
     • “Question Your Assumptions”.
   • Applying the principals to your specific business.
     • Testing your assumptions regarding the right product for the right customer
   • Laying out the concrete steps to take.
     • Navigate through the obstacles encountered when actually getting out and doing it

5. Contex

   • The Revised Technology Adoption Life Cycle
   • Segmentation
     • The practice of breaking down a larger market into smaller identifiable group of users who share specific needs and who reference each other.
   • Market Type
     • A concept coined by Steve Blank to describe different types of market conditions confronting new products, comprised of existing market, re-segmented market, and new market.
   • Non-Traditional” Business Models
     • Business models that do not sell a product to a customer directly for a set amount of money. For example, business models that include some element of “free” or the desire to demonstrate scale prior to revenue.
   • Positioning
     • Positioning is the act of placing your product within a market landscape, in your audience’s mind.
   • Product-Market Fit
     • : When a product shows strong demand by passionate users representing a sizable market.
   • Minimum Viable Product
     • A product with the fewest number of features needed to achieve a specific objective, and users are willing to “pay” in some form of a scarce resource
   • Lean Startup
     • A startup which combines fast, iterative development methodologies with customer development principles.
   • Getting Out of the Building

6. What Customer Development is Not

   • A rigid set of actions that leads to business success
   • Customer Development is neither authoritative nor dogmatic
   • Philosophy that requires deep contemplation and adherence to laws brought down from “nigh”,

7. Getting Started

   • 1) Marketing, Customer Development, and “Lean Startups”
     • 2) business, vision, model, product and target market
       • Customer Discovery
         • A product solves a problem for an identifiable group of users
         • 8 Steps to Customer Discovery
           • 1. Document C-P-S Hypotheses
           • 2. Brainstorm Business Model Hypotheses
           • 3. Find Prospects to Talk to
           • 4. Reach Out to Prospects
           • 5. Engaging Prospects
           • 6. Phase Gate I Compile | Measure | Test
           • 7. Problem-Solution Fit/MVP Testing
           • 8. Phase Gate II Compile | Measure | Test