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1. Customer
Development
Lessons
Learned
Founding
@makersacademy

3. Customer
Development
is
Not:
1. A
way
to
get
people
to
tell
you
what
to
build.
2. A
way
for
you
to
stroke
your
confirmaDon
bias.
3. A
way
to
build
a
checklist
of
feature
requests.

4. The
Problem
1. What
are
your
3
biggest
problems
right
now?
2. What
do
you
do
to
solve
those
problems?
3. For
each
problem,
if
you
could
wave
a
magic
wand
and
the
problem
would
be
solved,
what
would
that
soluDon
look
like?

5. The
SoluDon
4.
Why
is
this
problem
important
to
solve?
How
much
does
this
problem
cost
you?
(in
terms
of
lost
revenue,
lost
customers,
lost
Dme,
frustraDon,
etc.)
!
5.
Present
your
soluDon
with
a
lot
of
customer
prompDng.
Day
in
the
life
of
your
customer
before
and
aRer
your
soluDon.
Ask
how
your
soluDon
compares
to
their
exisDng
soluDon.
(Keep
track
of
every
quesDon
they
ask.)

6. The
SoluDon
6.
Price
Anchoring
Strategy
!
7.
Get
the
customer’s
buy
in.
Purchase
Order
is
best,
signed
leZer
of
intent
is
acceptable.
No
commitment
is
worthless,
regardless
of
what
they
say.

7. General
Guidelines
• Every
experiment
should
have
a
possibility
of
being
proven
false
• Ask
objecDve
quesDons
that
measure
things,
not
opinions
(“how
much
are
you
willing
to
pay?”
is
a
crap
quesDon)
• Every
quesDon
you
ask
should
pass
the
“mom
test”
• Try
to
watch
out
for
people
“foaming
at
the
mouth”
• Ask
for
referrals
at
the
end
of
every
interview