Customer Development
Week 3
Agenda
• 5:30 – Team Stand Up
• 5:40 – Market Segments and Customer
•
•
Development
6:30 – Activity
7:25 – Review
Objectives
• Introduce Market Segments
• Introduce Customer Development
Market Segments &
Customer Development
• Speaker Name
• Title
• Credentials
Market Segments
• New Market
• Existing Market
• Resegmented Market
 Niche
 Lower cost
Why does it matter?
Your approach will be different
depending on the market
segment.
What is your Market
Segment?
If there is no established or well
defined market and there are
no existing competitors you are
in a NEW market
New Market
• Requires a lot of time and money to
create the market.
• Need to find early adopters and
educate them on the value of the
solution.
What is your Market
Segment?
If there is an established and
well defined market with lots of
customers, but you offer
something “better”
(performance, features,
service) you are in an
EXISTING market
Existing Market
Competing based on “performance”
differences. Requires branding to differentiate
from competitors + lots of money!
vs
vs
vs
Existing Market
An existing market but offer virtually the
same features at a LOWER COST.
vs
Resegmented Market
If you are carving out a small part
of a bigger market to offer
something with a uniquely more
compelling value you are in
RESEGMENTED (or niche)
market.
Communication tools for business people
vs.
Communication tools for architects
What is YOUR Market
Segment?
In your group, take a few
minutes to talk about what
market segment your app idea
falls under.
Customer Development
Process
•
•
•
•
•
•
Problem / Solution Hypothesis
Market Research
Personas
Get Out of the Building
Problem / Solution Fit
MVP - Minimally Viable Product
Customer Development
“Customer development isn’t asking
customers what they want—it’s seeking to
understand what they need, how they
work, where their pain points and highest
priorities are. ”
—Cindy Alvarez
Customer Development
•
What will I learn?
 The short answer: how people are really getting a
task done, who is doing what, and why it sucks.
•
How long will it take?
 I don’t know. Sorry, but that’s the truth.
•
How can I find customers before I’ve even
built a product?
 How were you planning on finding them after
you’ve built a product?
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Customer Development
• In Market Research you uncovered
•
•
places where people that should be
interested in your product “live” on the
internet
Customer development is the process
of connecting with them to learn from
them
As your relationship to the
problem/solution and market changes
Source:
and evolves, so will what you need to
www.cindyalvarez.com
Customer Development
• One goal of customer development is to
•
survey people to find out if what you
think it true about them is actually true
about them
Another goal is to find out if there are
ways people are solving that problem
that you are unaware of
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Get Out of the Building
There are a number of ways you can do
customer development, and they all
require you to “get out of the building”—
either physically or virtually!
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Twitter Search
• An effective way of reaching
•
•
people…plus it is free!
Summarize your idea and build a
survey to capture feedback.
Reach out to people who have already
discussed a similar product, problem, or
solution and address a tweet directly to
them.
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Sample Tweet:
@username Would love yr
feedback on
[product/problem/solution] –
shd only take 2mins [URL]
thanks!
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Email Templates
• “Request” email templates
• “Referral Request” email
•
template
“Tweet Request” email
template
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Surveys
• Your surveys will be different depending on
•
•
•
how you found people and whether you
have found problem/solution fit.
Your first survey may need to focus on
qualifying the subject and asking for contact
information
Another survey will begin to ask them about
their behavior / needs
Your third survey might ask them to test or
give feedback on your MVP
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Survey Best Practices
• No survey should have more that 10
•
•
questions.
Use multiple choice questions that can
be answered by checkboxes so people
don’t have to think too hard to
participate
Using multiple choice you can also
allow for more than one answer
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Asking for Data
• When you are searching for
problem/solution fit you will be asking
questions about your problem and/or
solution hypothesis
• Find out if your subjects have the
problem
• Find out how they are solving it
• Ask about their behavior and needs
• Get contact information so you can ask
for the interview
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Asking the Right Questions
• When you write down your
problem/solution hypothesis you will
have made some assumptions about
people who will use or buy your
product.
• State your assumptions
• Prioritize in order of highest risk to
lowest
•Source:
You want to test the riskiest
www.cindyalvarez.com
assumptions first
Asking for an Interview
You have three main goals with this
survey:
• Communicate your idea in 10 seconds
or less
• Offer something interesting to the
people who visit
• Get contact information so you can ask
for the interview
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Sample Survey
Source:
www.cindyalvarez.com
Activity
•
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Brainstorm Personas
Write Interview Questions
Set up SurveyMonkey
Create Surveys
Plan Outreach
Brainstorm Personas
Find the Persona tab in
your team’s Technovation
Workspace on Google
Docs
Interview Questions
•
•
•
•
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•
Write the interview questions before you write
the survey intro
Phrase questions in a relevant way to the
subject
Make sure the questions get you information
that is useful – don’t waste their time!
Use formatting options for questions to get
more information in fewer questions.
Check for typos, spelling and grammatical
errors.
Test the survey before making a public
Sticky Note Activity
• Write as many questions as you can for
•
•
the potential customer of your product
Write each question on a sticky note
You have 5 minutes!
Survey Intro
• 10 seconds to get attention
• Your survey introduction must persuade
them to contribute
 Who are you persuading?
 What are you persuading them of?
Survey
• You will likely do many surveys, so don’t
•
•
stress over it.
You are looking for people who will be
your customer or has influence over
your customer.
Ask only whether they meet the criteria
you are looking for—one of the right
people.
•
•
•
•
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Go to http://www.surveymonkey.com to sign up for a
new account
Choose “sign up with your Google account” on the
right
Click “Create Survey”
Choose “Create a new survey” and title your survey
Choose “Market Research” as the Category
Create questions
Preview survey
Email to mentor and teammates to test and double
check that it is going to get you what you want in the
way of information.
Customer Development
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Create your first survey
Send the survey—in person, by phone, or
online
If you are doing phone interviews have the
survey in front of you and fill it out.
In-person interviews you should print out a
survey so you can be consistent in data
capture and collection.
ALWAYS: transcribe the data back into your
team Workspace
Measure and Learn
Example Survey A Results
Find the Example Survey A
tab in your team’s
Technovation Workspace on
Google Docs
Measure and Learn
Example Survey B Results
Find the Example Survey B
tab in your team’s
Technovation Workspace on
Google Docs
Reminder:
Weekly Reflections
• What did your team like about this
•
•
week?
What challenges did your team have
this week?
Anything else your team would like to
share?
Technovation Challenge
Google Group
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Ongoing Offsite Activities
• Customer Development
• Evaluate Data
• Continue learning with App Inventor