learn the importance of customers and how they are important to various aspects during different phases from a startup to a fully established company.

1. All About Customers
Goa Startup Launchpad
Vivek Naik
viveknaik@viveknaik.net
+91-897 526 7129

2. About Me
• Over 10 years experience in manufacturing industries
involved in producing consumer products, construction
hardware, auto parts.
• Have worked in various positions from supervisor to
Vice President
• Currently working as consultant and coach for business
owners and startups
• Passionate about learning the art and science of
startups
http://www.linkedin.com/in/viveknaik
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

3. LIFECYCLE OF CUSTOMERS

4. Lifecycle of customers
KNOWING
GETTING
KEEPING
GROWING
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

5. It all starts with knowing your
customer!

6. Let me tell you a real life story…

7. It is a journey of parts supplier who
went to become a full scale
manufacturer of his own products…

8. In the beginning
Number of Employees: One
Product/Service : Driver Seats to freight companies
Sales representative for a big seat manufacturing
company

9. Selling seats to top 10
freight companies provided
good insight about their
operation, challenges and
also got to interact with
their people at all levels…
KNOWING

10. Customers needed seats, but they
wanted to save money by extending
the life of their seats
Discovery

11. This knowledge lead to first attempt at
manufacturing…
Rebuilt Existing Seats for a local
Customer
GETTING

12. Lessons Learned
• Build a platform where you can interact with
your customers
– You can interact with customers without selling
anything too
– You can have a blog, organize events, join groups
– Our goal : to open a dialogue with future
customers
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

13. Lessons Learned
• Find out what the customer want beyond
their need and provide it to them
– In the story customers just needed a seat but
actually they wanted not to spend too much
money buying new one every time
– Want is always a stronger motivator then need
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

14. Lessons Learned
• Customers don’t always know what they
want!
• Don’t wait for perfect solution, provide the
minimum viable product that will solve your
customers biggest issue and then iterate
– The perfect solution in this case would have been
a robustly designed seat with long life
– Rebuilding old seat was technically less
challenging yet it extended the life of the seat at
very small cost
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

15. Lessons Learned
• Don’t try to solve all the problems of all the
customers
– Don’t loose your focus
– Focus on biggest issue of the customer of who is
willing to try your solution and pay for it
– for this to happen the customer must desperately
want the solution, he has suffered the problem for
considerable amount of time with minimal or no
success and has the budget
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

16. Continuing the Story
Selling a product or service once is
easy but to make your customers to
buy on repeated basis is challenging

17. So they started offering an experience
that was different than the major seat
suppliers

18. The new company was perceived as
friendly neighbor whom you can call to
solve your problems

19. They realized that
people did not only buy
because of the products
but also because of the
experience that came
along with it ….
KEEPING

20. There was no long waiting
time, not too many people
to deal with, getting the
seat was just a phone call
away…
If the customer had a
problem, somebody
visited them in person to
find the solution

21. Lessons Learned
• There are many opportunities to help your
customers on their buying, usage, and
maintenance processes of the products
• Buying experience and support during the
lifecycle of the product is a big part that many
companies neglect and can be your leverage
against your competitors
• Human touch, goes a long way when
maintaining relationship
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

22. Lessons Learned
• Don’t see yourself as only person who sells a
product , but as partner of your customer who
solves their issues
• Metrics related to Quality, Delivery and cost
needs to be measured and managed to provide
value to the customer
• Customer focused philosophies like lean helps to
align internal processes, people and products to
the need of the customer
• Understand the funnel, feed the funnel
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

23. Continuing the Story
Number of Employees: 8 -10
Product/Service : Driver Seats and seat parts to
freight companies
Seat Rebuilder , and parts supplier

24. Good relations and service
helped to keep steady flow
of orders …..

25. But you can only sell so
many rebuilt seats …..
Cost of the company increases: as
salaries , material cost and other
costs increase every year…..

26. So how do they stay
profitable in the future…..

27. They realized you have to grow to
survive…
GROWING

28. One avenue for growth
was to find new customers
Finding new customers has its
own cost and it takes lot of time

29. Other way was to sell more
products to the existing customers

30. • New seats were designed for vehicles like
lift trucks used by the freight companies
• Rebuild kits were sold to remote locations
who could not participate in rebuild
program
• Replacement and repair kits were
developed
• There was a failed attempt to
design a advanced new driver seat

31. Surprisingly there was a steady flow of
new customers who were referred by
the existing customers….
This helped the company to enter into other
industries
- Bottling companies
- Package delivery
- Passenger bus

32. Lessons Learned
• Find other applications where your customers
can use your product or service
• It is easier and faster to grow by selling more
to your existing customers than finding new
ones ( Though you have to find new
customers)
• Next place to grow is finding industry similar
to your current customers
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

33. Lessons Learned
• Helping your customers grow can help you
grow
• Do not grow faster than what your process
and people can handle
• Find ways to fully penetrate the existing
customer segments
• Tip the funnel, make your customers your
brand ambassadors
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

34. CONTINUING THE PROCESS
KNOWING
GETTING
KEEPING
GROWING

35. Back to the Beginning
• After growing your customers we need to
revisit the first part of the cycle : knowing
• This time we want to know what different
type of customers are hidden within our
existing customers which are not fully satisfied
• The iterate the whole process
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in

36. Another Story of
Telephone company, grows from just
providing phone service to internet provider
After knowing what different customers it served they
realize there are certain customers who want a more
reliable and high speed internet connection
So they launch a product with high price
tag which provides high speed internet
connection with dedicated line

37. Thanks
viveknaik@viveknaik.net
+91-897 526 7129
http://goastartuplaunchpad.in