The Nuts & Bolts of Building a Customer Driven Company

Jason @EvanishNovember 6, 2013

500 StartupsMountain View, CA

Who is Jason @Evanish?100’s of customer development interviews with:

Cofounded:

Blog my learnings at:

JasonEvanish.com

Today’s Topics

Why be Customer Driven

How to be Customer Driven

The Customer Development Interview Process

By @Evanish

…be a Customer Driven Company?

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Learn the language of your customers.

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Build and improve the features that

matter.

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Understand the why behind your analytics.

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Learn what jobs your customers

hire you for.

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Discover who and what to say “No” to.

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How do you make your company Customer Driven?

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Get feedback from your users.

By @EvanishLearn more at http://bit.ly/FeedbackBoxes

Learn from your support tickets.

Ask sales what excites leads.

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Use your analytics.

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Get out and talk to them.

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The Customer Development Interview

Learn in detail at: bit.ly/CustDevInterview

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The Structure

3. Solution

2. Problem

1. Person

The MVP House

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The Structure – 1. Person

• Who are they? What’s their role?• How is your budget handled?• How do you find new products for

work?• How much time do you spend on

[Task X]?

Goal: Get a baseline background of the person you’re talking to. Be broad.

Learn about them and their role in your industry.

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The Structure – 2. Problems

• NOT about the problems you think they have.

• What are your top 3 challenges you face in your job related to [industry X]?

• If you could wave a magic wand…what would the solution be?

Goal: Get them to say the problem you want to solve is a problem they have (prefer unprompted)

Learn about the problems they recognize first.

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The Structure – 3. Solution

• “That’s interesting” = Kiss of Death.• If they’re not anxious to use right

away, they’re not a key target. • Read body language, voice

inflection and energy level for signals of interest.

• Best reaction is actually following through after the meeting or calls.

Now you tell them about your product concept.

Goal: Discover if they’re interested in your solution and gather feedback.

By @Evanish

Tips for making the most of Interviews1. Take good notes.2. Involve other team members.3. Be Conversational. 4. Go off script.5. Ask to see any MVPs they’ve made/use.6. If they’re excited about something, ask if they’ll pay for it.7. Show them mockups or early concepts if you have them

and pay attention to their reactions/feedback.8. Always Follow up.9. End with an ask.10. Be open to new problems and opportunities!11. Summarize and review your notes with your team.

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Where do you find people to interview?

10 – 20% Response Rate

Find 95 methods at: bit.ly/1stcustomers

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The Best Place to Find Candidates:

30-40% Response Rate

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Now what?

• Interview in groups of 8-10 people per customer type.

• Summarize notes and review with others.

• Compare to your high level metrics to see if anecdotes match data.

• Keep talking to customers during product dev cycle.

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Customer Development in a Nutshell

Common Sense + Diligent Process + Thought =

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Questions?

Contact me…I’m happy to help.

On Twitter: @EvanishOther sites: About.me/Evanish Email: Evanish.J@Gmail.com

Find all my Lean learnings at JasonEvanish.com/lean-startups/

Find a detailed, blog form of the interview process at bit.ly/CustDevInterviewAnd 95 tips for finding your first customers at bit.ly/1stcustomers