Pre-selling

INGITE CANVAS

CAN YOU FIND EARLY ADOPTERS?

CAN YOU SELL EARLY ADOPTERS?

CAN YOU BUILD A PRODUCT THEY LOVE?

?

Can you… get lots of customers?

Why pre-sell? Can’t I just build my product and then sell it?

Reasons to pre-sell: OneAvoids you building something no one wants

How most startups launch

Business Plan LaunchProduct Development

Learning happens here!Months / Years

Warning!!! What happens if you don’t pre-sell?

0 /1700

Series1

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

1 day

365 days

Do you want to waste 365 days?

Reasons to pre-sell: TwoYou can test ideas quickly

The story of anyperk: 3 months

1 Dating site Mieple (Through friends)

2 Introductions to investors (Through friends)

3 Introductions to jobs (Through friends)

4 A translation company

5 Movie advice company

6 Teaching through Skype

7 AnyPerk (Offer discounts and perks to employees)

Reasons to pre-sell: ThreeThousands of other entrepreneurs have pre-

sold

$1.6B pre-paid

80 677 projects successfully funded

Example 1: dropbox 75,000 emails

Example 3: Business model generation470 strategy practitioners co-authored $250 each

$117 800 in pre-orders

Solution interviewsHow to pre-sell

CAN YOU FIND EARLY ADOPTERS?

CAN YOU SELL EARLY ADOPTERS?

CAN YOU BUILD A PRODUCT THEY LOVE?

?

Move once you have found a customer with a problem / disatified with current solution

1 Choose target customer

CAN YOU… sell early adoptors? Customer definition

1 Brainstorm 5 early adopter customer segments

2 Select what you believe is the best early adopter customer segment

3 Write it on a sticky note and place on the canvas

Hint: Choose a small market, reachable market with a budget and an unsolved pain.

2 Choose solution

Build something a small number of user love

Source: YCombinator

To build a great product start small

Create a compelling one line pitch

Solution advice

1 Make it great by keeping it small

2 Do a few things extremely well rather than many things okay

3 Perfect the one line pitch

CAN YOU… sell early adoptors? Customer definition

1 Brainstorm 5 potential solutions

2 Select the solution that will best solve the customers problem

3 Write it on a sticky note and place on the canvas

Hint: Keep it small with a few great features and a compelling one line pitch.

Solutiondescription

3 Write up expected result

Customer definition

Solutiondescription

Expected result

Early adopter customers will be willing to be part of pilot / pre-pay, buy or show a strong

signal they are interested.

Interviews in groups of 5.

1 / 5 Sign up, pilot

or pre-pay

5 / 5 Sign up, pilot

or pre-pay

B-to-B (No customers)

Interviews in groups of 5.

2 / 5 Sign up, pre-pay or pilot

5 / 5 Sign up, pre-pay or pilot

B-to-B (With customers)

What is your current conversation rate?

Interview in groups of 10.

1 / 10 Sign up, pre-pay or pilot

10 / 10 Sign up, pre-pay or pilot

B-to-C (No customers)

Interview in groups of 10.

1 / 10 Sign up, pre-pay or pilot

10 / 10 Sign up, pre-pay or pilot

B-to-C (With customers)

What is your current conversation rate?

CAN YOU… sell early adoptors? Customer definition

Solutiondescription

Expected result

1 Write up customer segment2 Write up solution3 Write up expected result

Time: 10 mins

4 Selling tools

Tools

Create a compelling story!

Create a story: Who?

Create a story: Why?

Create a story: Credibility indicators

• Famous people organisations• Testimonials • Proof you can build the product or service

Create a story: Reasons to buy and price

Create a story: Timelines

Create a story: Risk reversal

5 Create interview script

Solution questions

Set up the interview by saying you are looking for advice.

Describe the problem. Ask if they agree if that is their problem.

1 What part of the demo / product do you find most useful?

2 Which features do you think are most important?

3 Is there anything you think is missing?

4 Would you be an early adopter customer for a special price of X?

5 What are the next steps. i.e. Sign up for pilot, proposal, meeting

Write script & practice solution interview (15 mins)

Set up the interview by saying you are looking for advice. Describe the problem. Ask if they agree if that is their problem. 1 What part of the demo / product do you find most useful? 2 Which features do you think are most important? 3 Is there anything you think is missing? 4 Would you be an early adopter customer for a special price of X? 5 What are the next steps?

Google “Solution interview questions lean startup” for more advanced questions.

Interview customers

• Get out of the building

• Conduct customer interviews (Phone and face-to-face)

• Aim to do at least 5

• Ideally, run 3 sales experiments before leaving

• Feel free to ask for help from Justin or Paul after each round of interviews

• Mentor session 16:00