1. CitySpark
Seminars
Week 2
Testing your
assumptions

2. Today’s session
• Recap and review week one
• Understand how you can test your business
assumptions with customers
• Before you invest time and money on product
development
• Begin to apply it to your idea/vision

3. RECAP

6. Key points
• We’re not just looking for hypothetical business ideas or plans –
we want to see action, traction and evidence
• Every new business idea is an article of faith precariously
perched on a big stack of assumptions
• You need to challenge these assumptions right from the start –
not sail blissfully towards an epic fail at the end
• This means that you need to understand what assumptions
you’re making
• And then rank them in order of priority.

7. Homework
• Before next week’s session
• Review your list and mark the assumptions that would
have a large impact on your business and feel highly
uncertain
• Prioritise your top-3 assumptions
• Download Talking to Humans PDF and read pages 1-27
(www.talkingtohumans.com)

8. Answers

9. Academic excellence for business and the professions
(Re)introducing
Steve Blank

10. Academic excellence for business and the professions

11. There are two
ways you can do
this…

12. FIRST WAY
Qualitative

13. Academic excellence for business and the professions

14. AND

15. Academic excellence for business and the professions

16. SECOND WAY
Quantitative

17. Academic excellence for business and the professions

18. Academic excellence for business and the professions

19. Academic excellence for business and the professions

20. CAUTION
The first way is
surprisingly hard!

21. Academic excellence for business and the professions

22. IT’S NOT
Asking people to
design your product
for you

23. Academic excellence for business and the professions

24. IT’S NOT
About pitching

25. Academic excellence for business and the professions

26. Academic excellence for business and the professions
You are the
detective!

27. IT IS
Your job to learn
about your customers

28. Academic excellence for business and the professions

29. Your goal is not to
compile statistically
significant answers

30. Academic excellence for business and the professions

31. It is to look for
patterns that will
help you make
smarter decisions

32. Academic excellence for business and the professions

34. 5key questions

35. Question 1
Who do you want to learn
from?

36. Academic excellence for business and the professions
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

37. Top tips
• The first step in tying to learn rom the market is having an idea
about who your market actually is
- The typical customer you imagine will buy your product
- Your early adopter i.e. the people who will take a chance on you
before anyone else
- Critical partners for distribution or fulfilment
• Think through who the different users will be!
- Hospital management system
- Online veterinarian service
- Online marketing place for plumbers
- Colourful Coffins
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

38. Academic excellence for business and the professions

39. Question 2
What do you want to learn?

40. Academic excellence for business and the professions
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

41. Top tips
• Go into every interview with a prepared list of questions
• You’ll look more professional and it will keep you on point!
• Identify your most risky assumptions and start here
• Get stories, not speculation e.g. don’t ask “Would you like this
idea”, “Would you buy this product?”
• Ask open-ended questions e.g. ask questions that start with
words like who, what, why and how.
• Avoid questions that start with is, are, would, do you
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

42. REMEMBER!

43. Academic excellence for business and the professions

44. Question 3
How will you get to them?

45. Academic excellence for business and the professions
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

46. Academic excellence for business and the professions

47. Academic excellence for business and the professions

48. 3 Golden Rules
• Try to get one degree of separation away (don’t
interview people who already know you)
• Be creative (don’t expect people to come to you)
• Fish where the fish are (and not where they aren’t)
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

49. Top tips
• Asking for advice should be your default mode early in the
customer development process
• Be creative; if one route fails try something else
• Find the moment of pain, purchase etc.
• Make referrals happen; set a goal of walking out of every
interview with 2 or 3 new candidates
• Conferences and meet-ups can be an amazing recruiting ground
• Use being student to your advantage
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

50. Question 4
How can you ensure an
effective session?

51. Academic excellence for business and the professions
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

52. Top tips
• Do you interviews in person
• Talk to one person at a time
• Avoid focus groups!!!
• Add a note taker
• Get people to tell stories don’t ask them to predict their own
behaviour
• Listen don’t talk
• Do a dry run first
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

53. Question 5
How do you make sense of
what you learn?

54. Academic excellence for business and the professions
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

55. Your goal is not to
learn for learning’s
sake

56. Your goal is to make
better decisions that
increase the odds of
success

57. Academic excellence for business and the professions

58. Top tips
• Take good notes
• Dump and sort
• Look for patterns and apply judgement – don’t get locked in
analysis paralysis
• Expect false positives
• Don’t just rely on qualitative research alone!!!
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

59. Academic excellence for business and the professions
See: Giff Constance, www.talkingtohumans.com

60. SECOND WAY
Quantitative*
(*Remember me!?!)

61. Academic excellence for business and the professions
Introducing
Eric Ries

62. Academic excellence for business and the professions

63. Academic excellence for business and the professions

64. Academic excellence for business and the professions

65. Academic excellence for business and the professions

66. Academic excellence for business and the professions

67. Key idea 1
The ‘Build, Measure, Learn’ loop

68. Academic excellence for business and the professions
“The goal of a startup is to
figure out the right thing to
build – the thing customers
want and will pay for – as
quickly as possible.”

69. Academic excellence for business and the professions
Validated learning

70. Academic excellence for business and the professions
CREATIVITY
(AKA the jam sessions)
SONG ARRANGING
(Bothering to meet-
up and organise)
RECORDING
(Demo’s, albums etc.)
Record label, media &
PR support
SALES
(Singles, albums,
royalties, tickets,
merchandise etc.)
LEARN
(Drinking,
womanising,
breaking-up, rehab
and reformation)

71. Academic excellence for business and the professions
CREATIVITY
(AKA the jam sessions)
SONG ARRANGING
(Bothering to meet-
up and organise)
RECORDING
(Demo’s, albums etc.)
Record label, media &
PR support
SALES
(Singles, albums,
royalties, tickets,
merchandise etc.)
LEARN
(Drinking,
womanising,
breaking-up, rehab
and reformation)

72. Key idea 2
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

73. Academic excellence for business and the professions
“An MVP helps entrepreneurs
start the process of learning as
quickly as possible. It’s not
necessarily the smallest product
imaginable; it is the simply the
fastest route through the build-
measure-learn feedback loop”

74. Academic excellence for business and the professions

75. Academic excellence for business and the professions

76. Academic excellence for business and the professions

77. Academic excellence for business and the professions

78. Academic excellence for business and the professions

79. Academic excellence for business and the professions

83. Exercise – Mock Interviews
• Working in pairs
• Find out all about your partners dream car
• Dig into the reasons behind your partners choice e.g.
When did you fall in love with the car and why? Of the
reasons you shared, why are these the most
important to you? How have you imagined using the
car etc.

84. Exercise – Mock Interviews
• Step 1: Interview Plan, 5-mins
• Write a list of all the questions you could ask and
make a final selection of no more than 6-questions

85. Exercise – Mock Interviews
• Step 2: Pair Interviews, 7-mins each
• Take it in turns to interview each other using the lists
of questions you have compiled
• NB The person doing the interview should also take
as detailed notes as possible

86. RECAP

87. Key points
• Customer discovery is about gaining deeper insight into your
customer or your market
• Being told your idea is cool is not useful; seeing behaviour that
validates your customer’s willingness to buy is very useful
• Prepare an interview guide before you get out of the building
• Get creative when trying to recruit people – if at first you don’t
succeed try something new
• Sometimes observation is as powerful as interviews
• Don’t forget to get quantitative!!!

88. Homework
• Before next week’s session
• Based on the key assumptions you’ve identified
prepare an interview guide and find 5-10 interviewees
at one degree of separation
• Approach and try to set up an interview
• Download Talking to Humans PDF and read pages
30-66

89. CitySpark
Seminars
Week 3
Refining your
business model

92. Academic excellence for business and the professions
Customer
discovery
Customer
validation
Problem –
solution fit
Problem –
market fit

93. Problem-Solution fit =
You’ve identified a real-world
customer problem and a possible
solution

94. Product-Market fit =
You’ve built a product that early
adopters will pay you money for

95. Academic excellence for business and the professions
Customer
discovery
Customer
validation
Problem –
solution fit
Problem –
market fit
Yay, this is
awesome!