#customer-development

I'm always amazed when I discover a new piece of technology or software. Usually, thousands of business ideas start pouring into my head on how I can build a cool product. Most recently, the thought of Twilio, Mailgun, and Sendgrid came to mind. 

An internal dialogue raged on in my mind:

"SMS and email are some of the most ubiquitous communication tools, not to mention very pervasive."

 "What could I build quickly to monetize and spread virally?"

"Focus, you fool..."

"You're in the process of selling one company and you just started another. Plus, no one really cares about how you're using cool tech."

And then I dropped the thought.

This has happened to me time and time again. In fact, that's how Reflect7 was founded. I knew the iPhone would be hot. I knew that consumers would purchase them by the ton. I just didn't know what apps to develop for it yet. Eventually we settled on sports' apps, but we didn't consider the customer experience until the end.

I finally had this realization of all of this when I stumbled upon this video:

It was Steve Jobs who made it crystal clear as to what I had done. I was thinking a lot about the technology and how I could sell that, rather than consider customer problems and how I could build products that delivered a superb experience. This is what Gitpilot will do.

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Dear Fellow Entrepreneurs:

When sending out a launching announcement, please include a blurb to remind your mailing list users what your app does again and why we signed up in the first place. This would really help us to remember in our busy lives how your app can help get your users laid.

Your friend,

JP

Seriously though, this happens a lot. Most recently, this happend when Bushido sent me such a welcome invite. I had no clue what Bushido was as I had probably signed up months ago. Fortunately, this opened up for a nice dialogue with the founder who agreed with the point.

Some get it right though. BufferApp's founder Joel Gascoigne did this when he validated his app. Joel writes:

What I did with Buffer is treat the emails as people who were happy for me to get in touch and discuss the idea with and whether it solved a problem for them. As soon as someone put their email in the "you caught us early" page, I sent out an email which was from my own email address and shared more details about the product which weren't on the landing page. It also ended with a very welcoming paragraph explaining that I needed their help to shape the product into something truly useful. This triggered off a lot of communication and let me ask people what a fair price would be for example so I could decide on my pricing, and also decide on the priority of some features. In my previous startup I did the right thing of launching early but I made the mistake of having around 6000 users and never asking any of them what they thought about the product and whether it solved a problem for them.

So, attach a blurb in your launch email. Even better, tell your potential users how this app improves their life. I know that I'll remember this point when we launch Gitpilot.

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Let's recap: a MVP is the Minimum Viable Product that you need before you start generating revenue.

Buffer is a Twitter app that want's to make scheduling tweets simple. This feature is included in a lot of Twitter clients, but Buffer thinks that by focusing on this one feature alone, it can do it better. 

The author wrote an article on how he built Buffer from scratch and got his first paying customer within seven weeks. I love his methodology on idea validation.

First he created a landing page that sold the value proposition. The landing page has a button that says "see plans and pricing." When people would click it, there would be a message that said "you caught us early, please leave your email address..." See below:

People left their emails. But would they pay? He created a pricing page and used the same strategy as described before. See below:

People would click a pricing plan and leave their emails. Buffer the idea that people would pay for was validated. Genius. Checkout the post and checkout Buffer. [I have no affiliation with Buffer or the author, they just deserve some Google link-juice for sharing their awesome methodology.]

One thing he doesn't address is how to get people to the site in the first place. I wrote about a technique before. The idea is simple, signup for Google Adwords. They frequently send out $100 coupons for new advertisers to use. Purchase some keywords, and deploy your Adwords campaign. You can even take advantage of Google Forms for your email input.

When it's all said in done, you should be able to validate an idea with at most four hours of work. That's four hours well spent.

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Simon Sinek's idea of "Start with the Why" is something that you must consider about your customers. Watch this TED video:

The Huffington Post does a wonderful job describing Simon Sinek's idea on why so many people showed up to watch Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream." speech:

The details of how to achieve civil rights or what needed to be done were debatable, and different groups tried different strategies. Violence was employed by some, appeasement by others. Regardless of how or what was being done, there was one thing everyone had in common--WHY they were doing it. It was not just Martin Luther King's unflappable conviction that was able to stir a population, but his ability to put his WHY into words. Dr. King had a gift. He talked about what he believed. And his words had the power to inspire:

"I believe."

"I believe."

"I believe."

People heard his beliefs and his words touched them deep inside. Those who believed what he believed took that cause and made it their own. And they told people what they believed. And those people told others what they believed. Some organized to get that belief out more efficiently.

And in the summer of 1963, a quarter of a million people showed up to hear Dr. King deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

But how many people showed up for Dr. King?

Zero.

They showed up for themselves. It was what they believed. It was what they saw as an opportunity to help America become a better version of itself. It was they who wanted to live in a country that reflected their own values and beliefs that inspired them to get on a bus to travel for eight hours to stand in the Washington sun in the middle of August to hear Dr. King speak. Being in Washington was simply one of the things they did to prove what they believed. Showing up that day was one of the WHATs to their own WHY. This was a cause and it was their cause.

[Emphasis mine]

Zero people showed up for Martin Luther King. It was for themselves, it was for the shared belief, the shared dream. It made them feel good.

When discussing Tribal Fan the other night, we assembled a list of things that fans do to show their passion and love for their teams.

They...

Go to games.

Tailgate.

Comment on blog posts.

Buy apparel and memorabilia.

Read sporting news.

But, they don't do this for the team. These fans have much in common with those who showed up to watch MLK's speech. They do this for themselves. They do it to prove how much of a fan they are.

Before building a product or starting a movement, you must consider your WHY and your customers' WHY.

Photo Credit: Life-Engineering

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You should follow me on Twitter: @jprichardson