Most companies develop products first, then figure out how to market them later. This can lead to solutions without problems. A better approach is "lean customer development" - learning what customers need and delivering what they'll pay for. Lean customer development has five steps: - Form a hypothesis about what customers want - Find potential customers to interview - Ask the right questions to validate your hypothesis - Make sense of their answers to see if your hypothesis is correct - Build a minimum viable product to keep learning what customers want "Every hypothesis you invalidate through customer conversations prevents you from wasting time building a product no one will buy. If your hypothesis is wrong, you modify it based on what you learned. Those course corrections lead to products customers want and will pay for."
Everything you do in customer development centers on testing hypotheses about what customers are thinking and doing. You start by identifying your assumptions and articulating an initial hypothesis about the type of customer you want to serve. This process of writing down your assumptions shouldn't take long, but few teams remember to do it. The first step in lean customer development is forming an initial hypothesis about what customers want. This doesn't need to be complex or time-consuming. You really only need to do three exercises: Identify your assumptions You're likely already making assumptions about how your future customer thinks and acts. Spend time articulating what those assumptions are and putting them on paper. Questions to surface those assumptions include: - customers want to _____ but can't. - once customers use this product, they will _____. - customers are already using _____. - this will be useful because _____. Discuss these assumptions with your team to ensure everyone is on the same page regarding your starting point. Committing assumptions to paper makes sure the team works from a shared foundation. At this stage, you're not judging if assumptions are right or wrong, just capturing them. Write down the problem you solve In the format of a hypothesis, write down the problem you aim to solve. You can revisit and revise this as needed, but you need a starting point. Frame the problem using one of these templates: - we believe [customer] experiences [problem] when doing [task] - we believe [customer] experiences [problem] because of [constraint] The more specific the hypothesis, the easier it will be to validate or invalidate it later. Start with a narrow niche and expand from there. Map your target customer profile Figure out what your customer looks like if your hypothesis is correct. You may not know yet, so ask questions like: - what is the problem? - who currently has this problem? - what does that group look like? Also consider traits like values, roles, preferences, attitudes, motivations, and worries. Develop an initial profile of your ideal customer, revising it as you learn more. Once you complete these three exercises, you have a hypothesis to start validating. For example: "we believe r&d managers have a problem doing fast and effective customer research when trying to develop a new product." Keep testing and revising your hypothesis, assumptions, and customer profile. The customer development process is centered on continuously updating your understanding through real-world conversations.
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