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Doing customer development (and stop wasting your time)
Why would you bother to talking to people while you actually could be building your product? Because everything you assume could be wrong. Time to validate those assumptions and start your business on the right track.
Personas are fictional characters created
to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic, attitude and/or behaviour set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way.
Personas A persona is a
kind of an imaginary person with a name, history, and story who has a way of doing things.
Personas A persona should have
enough psychological detail to allow you to conveniently step over to the persona’s view and see your products and services from her perspective.
Personas A persona can function
almost like another person in the room when making a decision—It is “Magnus.” He looks at what you’re doing from his particular and very specific vantage point, and points out flaws and benefits for him.
about potential customers Describe a
stereotypical customer as detailed as possible Facts & demographics • Name, Gender, Age, Education, Occupation… Behaviours • What books does he/she read? What's he/she already doing to solve the problem you want to solve for him/her? Problem & needs • What are her points of pain as HE/SHE thinks about them? What product or service, similar to yours, is he/she using but unsatisfied with? Then, what problem is he/she trying to solve with that? What challenges keeps him/her up at night trying to google the answer? Goals & dreams • What is he/she trying to accomplish? What is most important to him/her? icon by Paulo Sá Ferreira
about potential customers Places •
Where (online and offline) can you find him/her? Forums? Comment sections of which blogs? Social networks? Meetups? LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Groups? Key influencers • Who does he/she trust as a thought leader? Who knows a lot of your customers and can introduce you to them? icon by Paulo Sá Ferreira Describe a stereotypical customer as detailed as possible
Questions to ask when developing
personas #1 What is their demographic information? #2 What kind of job do they have? #3 What does a day in their life look like?
Questions to ask when developing
personas #1 What is their demographic information? #2 What kind of job do they have? #3 What does a day in their life look like? #4 What do they value most? What are their goals?
Questions to ask when developing
personas #1 What is their demographic information? #2 What kind of job do they have? #3 What does a day in their life look like? #4 What do they value most? What are their goals? #5 Where do they get their information?
A man wakes up, turns
on the radio, goes upstairs, turns on the lights, and kills himself. Why? image by Spirit_of_69 (Note: this slide, and several other, are accompanied by a mini-workshop which is really hard to replicate without being in the room. If you want to bring me in-house and hear the punchline, ping @jcvangent)
image by wstryder (Note: this
slide, and several other, are accompanied by a mini-workshop which is really hard to replicate without being in the room. If you want to bring me in-house and hear the punchline, ping @jcvangent)
#1 Use a script or
survey Three ways to horrible screw up customer development
Always know your big 3
questions Don’t stress to much about choosing the “right” important questions. They will change. Just choose the 3 questions which seem murkiest or most important right now. Doing so will give you a firmer footing and a better sense of direction for your next 3. Knowing your list allows you to take better advantage of serendipitous encounters.
Questions to dig into feature
requests # Why do you want that? # What would that let you do? # How are you coping without it? #Do you think we should push back the launch date, add that feature, or is it something we can add later? # How would that fit into your day?
Questions to dig into emotional
signals # Tell me more about that. # That seems to really bug you - I bet there’s a story here. # What makes it so awful? # Why haven’t you been able to fix this already? # You seem pretty excited about that - it’s a big deal? # Why so happy? # Go on.
The mom test • Never
ask their opinion, especially about your idea • Ask about their life • Ask about specifics in the past (“talk me through the last time you…”) • Talk less and listen more
Running the process (Note: these
are another set of workshop slides as taught during Evolv Weekend, ping @jcvangent for more info)
Customer Hypotheses Problem / Pain
Hypotheses Riskiest Asumptions Minimum Success Criteria Experiments Results Solution Hypotheses Get out of the building and test Define riskiest assumptions and experiments Progress Report Board team: Progress Report Board v1.2 Progress Report Board team: First validate that your customer has a problem Then, state what your assumption is of the ideal soluotion, and build your experiments to validate those assumptions Fill in your persona sheets and refer to those, you can give them names to match their personality Of all the assumptions you have, state the one, which if proved wrong, will invalidate the whole business Design an experiment which will (in)validate the riskiest assumption most efficiently Call the criteria the results need to meet for the assumption to be validated State the results of the experiment compared to the criteria, and thus if it’s validated or invalidated, and if you’re going to pivot, iterate or persevere Inform us on the problems your customer or persona is having and how severe those pains are according to you
State the results of the
experiment compared to the criteria, and thus if it’s validated or invalidated, and if you’re going to pivot, iterate or persevere. Result
Why would you bother to talking to people while you actually could be building your product? Because everything you assume could be wrong. Time to validate those assumptions and start your business on the right track.
Personas are fictional characters created
to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic, attitude and/or behaviour set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way.
Personas A persona is a
kind of an imaginary person with a name, history, and story who has a way of doing things.
Personas A persona should have
enough psychological detail to allow you to conveniently step over to the persona’s view and see your products and services from her perspective.
Personas A persona can function
almost like another person in the room when making a decision—It is “Magnus.” He looks at what you’re doing from his particular and very specific vantage point, and points out flaws and benefits for him.
about potential customers Describe a
stereotypical customer as detailed as possible Facts & demographics • Name, Gender, Age, Education, Occupation… Behaviours • What books does he/she read? What's he/she already doing to solve the problem you want to solve for him/her? Problem & needs • What are her points of pain as HE/SHE thinks about them? What product or service, similar to yours, is he/she using but unsatisfied with? Then, what problem is he/she trying to solve with that? What challenges keeps him/her up at night trying to google the answer? Goals & dreams • What is he/she trying to accomplish? What is most important to him/her? icon by Paulo Sá Ferreira
about potential customers Places •
Where (online and offline) can you find him/her? Forums? Comment sections of which blogs? Social networks? Meetups? LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Groups? Key influencers • Who does he/she trust as a thought leader? Who knows a lot of your customers and can introduce you to them? icon by Paulo Sá Ferreira Describe a stereotypical customer as detailed as possible
Questions to ask when developing
personas #1 What is their demographic information? #2 What kind of job do they have? #3 What does a day in their life look like?
Questions to ask when developing
personas #1 What is their demographic information? #2 What kind of job do they have? #3 What does a day in their life look like? #4 What do they value most? What are their goals?
Questions to ask when developing
personas #1 What is their demographic information? #2 What kind of job do they have? #3 What does a day in their life look like? #4 What do they value most? What are their goals? #5 Where do they get their information?
A man wakes up, turns
on the radio, goes upstairs, turns on the lights, and kills himself. Why? image by Spirit_of_69 (Note: this slide, and several other, are accompanied by a mini-workshop which is really hard to replicate without being in the room. If you want to bring me in-house and hear the punchline, ping @jcvangent)
image by wstryder (Note: this
slide, and several other, are accompanied by a mini-workshop which is really hard to replicate without being in the room. If you want to bring me in-house and hear the punchline, ping @jcvangent)
#1 Use a script or
survey Three ways to horrible screw up customer development
Always know your big 3
questions Don’t stress to much about choosing the “right” important questions. They will change. Just choose the 3 questions which seem murkiest or most important right now. Doing so will give you a firmer footing and a better sense of direction for your next 3. Knowing your list allows you to take better advantage of serendipitous encounters.
Questions to dig into feature
requests # Why do you want that? # What would that let you do? # How are you coping without it? #Do you think we should push back the launch date, add that feature, or is it something we can add later? # How would that fit into your day?
Questions to dig into emotional
signals # Tell me more about that. # That seems to really bug you - I bet there’s a story here. # What makes it so awful? # Why haven’t you been able to fix this already? # You seem pretty excited about that - it’s a big deal? # Why so happy? # Go on.
The mom test • Never
ask their opinion, especially about your idea • Ask about their life • Ask about specifics in the past (“talk me through the last time you…”) • Talk less and listen more
Running the process (Note: these
are another set of workshop slides as taught during Evolv Weekend, ping @jcvangent for more info)
Customer Hypotheses Problem / Pain
Hypotheses Riskiest Asumptions Minimum Success Criteria Experiments Results Solution Hypotheses Get out of the building and test Define riskiest assumptions and experiments Progress Report Board team: Progress Report Board v1.2 Progress Report Board team: First validate that your customer has a problem Then, state what your assumption is of the ideal soluotion, and build your experiments to validate those assumptions Fill in your persona sheets and refer to those, you can give them names to match their personality Of all the assumptions you have, state the one, which if proved wrong, will invalidate the whole business Design an experiment which will (in)validate the riskiest assumption most efficiently Call the criteria the results need to meet for the assumption to be validated State the results of the experiment compared to the criteria, and thus if it’s validated or invalidated, and if you’re going to pivot, iterate or persevere Inform us on the problems your customer or persona is having and how severe those pains are according to you
State the results of the
experiment compared to the criteria, and thus if it’s validated or invalidated, and if you’re going to pivot, iterate or persevere. Result