In my thread of the evening I’ll share a very simple customer discovery “program” for early stage #saas.
In the past months I realized that many early stage founders mistake what they think is a marketing problem with what is, in reality, a customer discovery problem. They have a 1st version of their product but no stream of leads. So they want to start marketing to solve that.
In the majority of the cases I later realized that it was too early to start marketing, the real issue was that they didn’t discuss enough with potential users so the “product + value proposition + customer / persona” chain was not clear yet.
And kickstarting your marketing program to get more leads in that situation generally leads to disappointment. Even if you have a working product, it’s worth going through another customer discovery phase, here’s a very simple program:
Step 1
Open a spreadsheet and write down what you think are your ideal customers / users. You don’t need to read a book on the theory of persona building. Just try to define as much as possible who you think your ideal buyers & users are.
Open a spreadsheet and write down what you think are your ideal customers / users. You don’t need to read a book on the theory of persona building. Just try to define as much as possible who you think your ideal buyers & users are.
Step 2
Set a number of interviews / meetings that you want to conduct weekly. Ex: We want to interview 5 people per week (who match your personas defined at step 1).
Set a number of interviews / meetings that you want to conduct weekly. Ex: We want to interview 5 people per week (who match your personas defined at step 1).
Step 3
Conduct these interviews like open discussions. Don’t try to sell your product. Don’t feel the pressure of being a sales. Just discuss with them about their problems, their habits, the tools they use etc… and if the flow is right then talk about your product.
Conduct these interviews like open discussions. Don’t try to sell your product. Don’t feel the pressure of being a sales. Just discuss with them about their problems, their habits, the tools they use etc… and if the flow is right then talk about your product.
Step 4
Distribute this task to 2-3 people in the team. CEO has to do it, ideally with the product guy and the first “all around” marketing person. Ex: two itws per week for the CEO, and one for the product and marketing person.
Distribute this task to 2-3 people in the team. CEO has to do it, ideally with the product guy and the first “all around” marketing person. Ex: two itws per week for the CEO, and one for the product and marketing person.
Step 5
Take notes for each interview and share them with the two other people doing the interviews. Write a weekly (or monthly) report summing up the main learnings that you share with the whole team.
Take notes for each interview and share them with the two other people doing the interviews. Write a weekly (or monthly) report summing up the main learnings that you share with the whole team.
It sounds crazy (since customer discovery is a such a covered topic) but if you do that you’re already doing what 80% of the very early stage startups I see are not doing.
BTW I, by no mean, pretend it’s easy. Being consistent and interviewing users is hard.
BTW I, by no mean, pretend it’s easy. Being consistent and interviewing users is hard.
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