Loading...
Answers
MenuHow should customer development look like after the product is launched?
This question has no further details.
Answers
I'll first answer this from a product and development perspective:
This answer is written assuming you have done everything right to launch a product that has already established product/market fit.
First, you want to fix the "leaky buckets." Brett Martin wrote a post-mortem of his startup and wrote: "Removing friction from existing user behaviors (e.g. checkins) almost always has a higher ROI than building castles in the sky (e.g. hypothesizing about your API). Find all the dead ends/local maxima in your current products before building new ones!" source: https://medium.com/p/72c6f8bec7df
Once you've done that, you'll be making prioritizing new features, metrics movers and customer delight. Adam Nash has a great post on product planning process here: http://blog.adamnash.com/2009/07/22/guide-to-product-planning-three-feature-buckets/
From a business perspective, your primary job is to be constantly talking to your actual users. As Brett explains in his post-mortem, one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is optimizing for people who aren't their customer. I believe strongly that the CEO of any startup should be heavily involved in customer support and, if the business is an enterprise business, in sales. There is just nothing as powerful as hearing from real customers.
Also, if you're selling anything, you want to be constantly tweaking the dials and experimenting with everything from pricing to conversion optimization.
And regardless of selling anything, conversion optimization is a daily activity, experimenting with new ways to fill the top of the funnel and bring them into the actions required to build your business.
Hope this helps. If you're asking because you're prepping for a launch or just launched, happy to do a call with you to provide more specific context.
You never really stop doing customer development. Remember that there are 5 main metrics for SaaS businesses: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, and Referral. You might consider Customer Development as the process of validating hypothesis around how to drive those metrics.
Please provide more details so that we may better understand the question.
Related Questions
-
What are ways to find and engage B2B beta users for a brand new application?
Find apps that are B2B and go to the review sections. Specifically going to Google's play or Chrome store and look at reviews and follow them to Google+ to engage. I took that same angle for B2C app I was building last year. Check it out. http://blendah.com/post/37331434653/lean-startup-hackTM
-
Should we continue the startup or shut it down?
A good question. The fact that you don't have revenue yet may be result of a number of factors. Without knowing more specific information about your product, key customer segments, your team, and other key data, it's not possible to give you a definite continue/or shut down recommendation. That said, generally, I would recommend adding a third decision point - the pivot. Many businesses don't see the expected returns after initial launch or MVP testing, and decide to pivot to a different direction, ultimately finding success. The pivot can be a slightly different product (product-based pivot), a slightly different market segment (market-based pivot), or both. Here are some recommended action items to help you uncover extra insight as you examine whether to continue, close down, or pivot: 1) How did you organize the initial customer's interviews? What kinds of questions did you ask them, and were any of them leading questions? 2) Review your core customer segment(s) at this point. How did you determine a product-solution fit to them? Are the customer segments clear and specific enough? 3) Did you run a MVP (minimum-viable product) to test potential product-market fit? Were any findings contrary to your initial assumptions? 4) Consider running another set of quick interviews. Determine any differences between the new interviews versus the initial customer interviews. 5) Make some hypotheses on the key assumption or factor that could have contributed to zero revenue. Run a basic test to confirm that hypothesis. If correct, you may be able to pivot by eliminating that factor or substituting with something else. For example, pretend that your core assumption is that young urbanite foodies will appreciate recommendations on best dishes. If that assumption turns out false, then you may need to consider pivoting to a different customer segment (professionals who don't have time to research the best dishes?) 6) Examine your pricing model. How did you determine it? What tests have you made? Try running a few simple tests with alternative pricing schemes, and see if anything changes. 7) What is your current monthly burn rate, and how long can you project to last at this rate?JY
-
How to incentivise future distribution partners to sign non-binding Letters of Intent for a physical product not yet manufactured, 3-5 y. life cycle?
I'd avoid the cold email. The best way to get inside big companies like distributors is to "social engineer" a connection to someone there. Find a 2nd or 3rd degree connection on LinkedIn. Hang out at a restaurant near their HQ and look for people with the right badge on. Ask your potential angel for help connecting you. If they can't, they might not be the right investor for your company at this stage. Their investment should get you more than money, it should come with connections, advice and mentoring. Basically, there's no easy way to do this and every situation is different but it's going to take a lot more than a cold email or phone call.AW
-
What are examples of great questions to ask when surveying your customers?
Khuram's reference to what I call the "gap technique" is spot on. Few people will rate something 10/10 or A+. This gives you the opportunity to ask them how to achieve that highest rating. Once you do that: "Shut up and listen!" :) -- One of the worst mistakes is to get a participant talking (and many people talk way too much) but then to cut them off even though they're giving you substantive information (obviously, if it's drivel, then you do want to move on). You also have to assess those you survey: some are founts of information and insight while others have nothing to say. All are not created equal, as it were. In all surveys, whether in person or on-line, I recommend open-ended (i.e., unprompted) questions (where possible) followed by close-ended (i.e., prompted answers) questions. In other words: What is your favorite brand of cookie (with no list specified)? Perhaps they say Oreos. Later on, after they've forgotten that, you have a list: Which is your favorite cookie brand: a) Little Debbie; b) Mrs. Fields; c) Oreo; d) Duncan Hines? Now if those two don't match up, how valuable are these answers? So that gives you the ability to test for validity. Once you present the prompted answers, you've poisoned the well, which is why they have to come later. Hope this helps and should you have any questions, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you. Best, SteveSM
-
May I apply the term "lean" if I adapt lean startup concepts & apply them outside entrepreneurship w/o infringing on any legal protections of "lean"?
Ries owns 'Lean Startup' trademark. I doubt 'lean' by itself is trademark-able, and isn't claimed by Eric. Someone else may claim 'lean career development,' so might be worth a trademark search.BE
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.