which customers are you building the right product for pca9
Post on 13-Sep-2014
333 views
DESCRIPTION
This session is the opposite of Go-to-Market and Marketing Execution, which focus on "putting lipstick on the pig." We'll frame two ends of a product inception spectrum -- a) design a product that you'd want to buy and b) analyze a market to figure out what they're likely to buy -- and discuss the practical realities between the two.TRANSCRIPT
Which customers are you building the right product for?
Paul Teich@paulrteichFB: paul.teichLI: [email protected]
Contributing Analyst [email protected]
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 38/18/2012
Session Format: Ask the ExpertSession Category: Opportunity AnalysisTarget Audience: Essentials, EntrepreneursOpposite of…Go-to-Market and Marketing Execution
+
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 4
Product Inception Spectrum
• Design a product that you'd want to buy• Analyze a market to figure out what they're
likely to buy
Practical realities are somewhere in-between
8/18/2012
DesignforMe
Designfor
Them
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 5
What You Want to Buy
You…• speak with one voice• have an easy to characterize pain point• have a usage model in mind to address it• have visualized the resulting product / service• know that at least one person will buy it
…and frankly, who wouldn’t?
8/18/2012
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 6
Downside to Small Sample Sizes
• Who do you represent?• If you poll your friends, are they a lot like you?
• What is “normal?”
8/18/2012
forty days of darkness
confirmation bias
locusts
sample bias
group-think
false-consensus
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 7
What They Want To Buy
They…• don’t speak with one voice• don’t have identified or clearly articulated
pain points• have no idea what “usage model” means• can only visualize incremental improvements• have to be convinced that your problem will
address their pain points
8/18/2012
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 8
Who Are They?
• People (B2C)– Demographic – population characteristics – Behavioral – loyalty, purchase patterns– Psychographic – personality, values, attitudes,
interests, lifestyles
• Organizations (B2B)– Firmographic – characteristics of orgs
8/18/2012
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 9
How Do You Find Out?
• Expert opinion• Ethnography• Focus groups• Talk to people
No, really, find some people to talk to…
8/18/2012
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 10
Normal Behavior
• Statistically measurable……as in “normal distribution”
• Find a relevant pain point– For a lot of people– Who can afford a solution– At a price that you can serve
8/18/2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Discrete_Gaussians.svg
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 11
Finding the Norm• Measurable
Qualitative data can be economically collected• Substantial
Audience is usefully large• Homogeneous inward
Constituents are enough alike that they behave as a flock (for key attributes)
• Heterogeneous outward Constituents are measurably different from others
8/18/2012
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 12
Sizing, Segmenting,and Forecasting Markets
• This is a another full session for next PCA• It’s outside the scope of this discussion• http://www.slideshare.net/pteich/sizing-segm
enting-and-forecasting-markets• I need to update it at some point…
8/18/2012
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 13
Example: 1999-2002
• Pain point: info overload• Developed by/for: geeks• “Personal Insight Network”– Empowers you to quickly and
easily use the information that you value
• Audiences– Content providers– Corporate portals– Internet service providers
8/18/2012
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 14
• Pain point was emergent– PDAs were luxury items, smartphones did not exist– Consumer households did not yet have multiple PCs– Notebook PCs were still expensive– Etc.
• And so the audience was not large– Consumers did not have a high level of pain yet– So we were designing for workers like us
• Y2K recession, in 2001 corporations stopped buying
8/18/2012
Example: 1999-2002
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 15
Example: 1999-2002 (RIP)
• Who succeeded?Evernote.com Evernote is a platform for human memory, designed to help individuals remember everything™– Early 2008 private beta; service went public in June 2008– Grew despite downturn by addressing maturing pain points
• And who didn’t? Keep tabs on your life– Announced in November 2002, shipped one year later– Eventually bundled with Office
8/18/2012
Microsoft Office OneNote
PCA9: Which Customers Are You Building For? 16
Creative Tension
8/18/2012
DesignforMe
Designfor
Them
Be realistic about how many people you are designing for.
If you can’t identify with them at some level,then find someone who can.
You must be passionate about your target audience
