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Session 3 - Solution interviews
The document provides guidance on developing a minimum viable product (MVP) and conducting customer interviews and solution validation. It recommends building the smallest possible product to test assumptions with customers, conducting 10+ customer interviews to understand problems and validate solutions, and creating a 3-page landing page to pitch the solution during interviews. The goal is to learn the most about customer needs and product-market fit with the least effort and resources before fully developing the product.
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Session 3 - Solution interviews
- 1.
- 2. Update the customer problemsand goals
- 3. Key reasons businessesfail is that their plan is based on false assumptions
- 4. Goal 1 Customer Goal 2 Whichof your initial Customers goal and problem assumptions are correct and which were false? Goal 3 Problem 1 Problem 2 Problem 3
- 5. Goal 1 Customer Goal 2 Task(Time: 10 minutes) 1 Remove false assumptions 2 Add new problems and goals patterns Goal 3 Problem 1 Problem 2 Problem 3 New problem
- 6. Product and featuresdesign
- 7.
- 8.
- 9. How do youbuild a great product with so little resources?
- 10. Build something asmall number of user love Source: YCombinator
- 11. Version 4Version 1Version 2 Version 3
- 12. The only thingthat matters is product/market fit - Marc Andreessen
- 13. Feature 1 Goal 1Customer Goal 2 Feature 2 Product-Market fit happens when The product helps the customers 1. Achieve their goals 2. Solve their problems Better than the current solutions Feature 3 Goal 3
- 14. App to call ataxi Get to my destination Traveller Taxi’s are expensiveRating of taxi driver Standard pricing Drivers are rude Arrive late & unreliable Can’t hear the driver Payment is hassle Clean cars Polite drivers Feel Used / Ripped off Geo-tracking
- 15. Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature3 Feature 4 Feature 5 Feature 6 Tasks (Time: 10 minutes) 1. Add product, services and features to your canvas 2. Ensure your product, services and features solve your customer problems
- 16.
- 17. Create a story:Who?
- 18. Onhub Slow speeds Home Wifiuser Shouldn’t Wifi be easier Lost connections Communications With an app Not blinking lights Starts fast and Stays fast Hard to set up Hard to trouble shoot
- 20. Juicero Buy expensive fruit & vegetables Home Juicer Squashed Produce Washfruit and vegetables Delivered to Your door Taken care of everything – washing, peeling, chopping, growing. Assemble Juicer Clean up juicerThere is Nothing to clean 100% organic 100% raw
- 21. Create a compellingone line pitch
- 23. The 4-hour Body Real adlook at feel 1 human guinea pig 100+ Scientist consulted 10 years of experiments Hold your Breath fo 5 minutes Run 100 miles Use credibility indicators and customer goals Lift 500 pounds
- 24. Messaging best practice 1Link messaging to problems 2 Clear one line pitch 3 Use credibility indicators 4 Use customer goals
- 25. Product Message 1 Message3 Message 2 Task (Time 10 mins) 1 Add messaging and stories for your product. 2 Ensure that your messaging fits with your customer goals and problems. Story 1 Story 2
- 26.
- 27. Minimum variable product MVPdefinition: A version of the product or marketing that will help you learn the most about customer behaviour with the least effort
- 28. How most startupslaunch Business Plan Launch Product Development Learning happens here!Months / Years
- 29. A lean startup Run Experiments Launch Product Development Learnif idea will work! Months / Years
- 30. Warning!!! What happens ifyou don’t pre-sell? 0 /1700
- 31. Minimum variable product Whatcould they have done differently?
- 35. 0 50 100150 200 250 300 350 400 1 day 365 days Do you want to waste 365 days?
- 36.
- 37. 0 100 200300 400 1 Day Months / Years Slide Presentation Full product
- 39. 0 100 200300 400 Days Months / Years Full product Landing page Landing page MVP
- 40. 0 100 200300 400 Weeks Months / Years Consulting MVP Full product Consulting
- 41. 0 100 200300 400 Days Months / Years Video MVP Full product Video
- 42. 0 100 200300 400 Weeks / Months Months / Years Crowdfunding MVP Full product Crowd funding
- 43. 0 100 200300 400 Weeks / Months Months / Years Audience MVP Full product Email list
- 44. 0 100 200300 400 Weeks Months / Years Wizard of Oz MVP Full product Wizard of Oz
- 45. 0 100 200300 400 Weeks / Months Months / Years Other people’s product MVP Full product Competitor Product
- 46. 0 100 200300 400 Days Months / Years Advert MVP Full product Online ads
- 47. 0 100 200300 400 Days Months / Years Feature MVP Full product Feature
- 50. To build agreat product start small
- 51. Task (Time: 10minutes) 1 Create a list of MVPs that you would be relevant for your product 2 Decide which MVP you will build first. (Start with the MVP that will give you the most learning in the shortest amount of time).
- 52.
- 53. Why do solutioninterviews? Can’t I just build my product and then sell it?
- 56. Interview script 1 Rapport 2Customer indicator question 3 Give context 4 Demonstration 5 Pre-sales / price testing 6 Thanks
- 57. Questions 1 Would youagree this is your biggest problem? 2 Demo product • What features do you like? • What features would be most useful? • What don’t you like about the solution? • Which features would you use every day? 3 After demo • Do you think this will solve your problem? • What could be improved? • What would you change? 4 Pre-sales • Do you want to be part of the pilot for X?
- 58. Questions 1 Would youagree these are your goals and problems? 2 Demo product • What features do you like? • What features would be most useful? • What don’t you like about the solution? • Which features would you use every day? 3 After demo • Do you think this will solve your problem? • What could be improved? • What would you change? 4 Pre-sales • Do you want to be part of the pilot for X?
- 59. Questions 1 Would youagree these are your goals and problems? 2 Demo product • What features do you like? • What features would be most useful? • What don’t you like about the solution? • Which features would you use every day? 3 After demo • Do you think this will solve your problem? • What could be improved? • What would you change? 4 Pre-sales • Do you want to be part of the pilot for X?
- 60. Questions 1 Would youagree these are your goals and problems? 2 Demo product • What features do you like? • What features would be most useful? • What don’t you like about the solution? • Which features would you use every day? 3 After demo • Do you think this will solve your problem? • What could be improved? • What would you change? 4 Pre-sales • Do you want to be part of the pilot for X? Do you want to be put on the waiting list?
- 61. Solution interview with Slide presentation Sponsors Face toface meeting 5 Interviews Interested in running a pilot 2 / 5 Ran a pilot There is sponsorship money availabe Build a sponsorship model
- 62. Solution interview with Slide presentation Sponsors Face toface meeting 5 Interviews Interested in running a pilot Task (Time: 10 minutes) 1 Plan a solution interview experiment 2 Decide what MVP you will use to show the customer
- 63. Interview customers • Getout of the building • Conduct customer interviews (Phone or face-to-face) • Aim to do at least 10 interviews • Aim to run and analyse 2 experiments • Next presentation at 16:30 • Feel free to ask for help from the team after each experiment • If you are already up and running ask someone on the team to help you design a relevant experiment for your business
- 64. 1. Signed upto your landing page. 2. Purchased the product or service. 3. Pre-paid for the product or service. 4. Willing to pilot with solution with you. 5. Got excited by the solution you pitched to them. How do you test if they will buy? 8 / 10 Signed up 8 / 10 Purchased 8 / 10 Pre-paid 8 / 10 Pilot 8 / 10 Got excited
- 65. 1. Get asingle conversation (1/10). Understand why. Improve. Goal (10/10). 2. Create a high bar (8/10). Quickly invalidate ideas. Next idea. 3. Your current conversation ratio (?/10). Improve. 4. Statistical significance (95/99% level). 5. Financial model. What does conversation rate need to be for the business to be viable? How do you determine the conversation ratio? ? / 10 Signed up
- 66.
- 67. 4 Preparing solutionpitch
- 68.
- 72. Logo Picture Amazing one-line headline thatis easy to understand and has key benefit in it. Amazing sub-headline that is easy to understand. CTA for offer Social media buttons Key benefit / feature Description of feature / benefit. Key benefit / feature Description of feature / benefit. Key benefit / feature Description of feature / benefit. Key benefit / feature Description of feature / benefit. Price 1 • Feature • Feature • Feature Price 2 • Feature • Feature • Feature Price 3 • Feature • Feature • Feature Quote from problem / solution interviews. - Persons name • Create a 3 page landing page of your solution • Use a landing page format • Time 30 mins Slide 1 Slide 2 Slide 3
Editor's Notes
- #31 My Startup Failed. Fuck. I finally said it, my startup failed. Fuck. I felt like I was coming out of the closet when I first stated it aloud to my co-founder. We both knew for months it was not working out, but we never explicitly defined our situation as a failed one. Now that the elephant in the room has a name, we’ll call him “Dumbo” which stands for “Didn’t Understand Markets Brain Outline”. That right there was our main problem. Our market demographic was musicians, and although a few of us had worked around the industry, we concluded recently we were not music SALES domain experts. The product was a flash sale platform for musicians to release their music using dynamic pricing (zillionears.com). To us, this software was a no brainer for musicians to use. The artists get to engage their fans while enticing their community to share with friends. So we talked to a few artists who said they thought it was a cool idea. BOOM! Our idea had been validated! After that moment we basically stopped talking to artists for a year and built (and rebuilt) the software until we thought it was acceptable. Our first beta test was a disaster when Amazon (who was our payment processor) suspended our account for not complying with money transfer issues. Fans were able to participate in the sale, but we were unable to capture their billing. We ended up paying the artist out of our own pocket and giving everyone his music for free (and we never told him that happened until now). From that beta test we found out that our software needed to be rewritten to comply with Amazons terms. More importantly though, people really didn’t really LIKE anything about our product. No one that used the service thought it was that cool. In fact, some people that participated in the sale didn’t even like our “dynamic pricing” system. They were trying to support the artist, so saving a few dollars didn’t excite them. They could easily have just gotten his music for free elsewhere. We should have packed it up early right then, but we felt like we had already gone too far to quit. We rebuilt (and re-designed) the majority of the software, got approved by Amazon, and reached out to over 1,700 artists (each individually through different platforms). We got between 1 and 10 artists interested. Again, this just screams “PUT IT OUT OF ITS MISERY!” But we kept going. Finally the day came for our second beta (which was totally gonna kick ass for sure). The artist we had on board set up his sale page and was ready to go. Only problem is he totally misunderstood what our software was all about. Once he found out about the dynamic pricing he tells us “I think I am just going to release with another platform.” FUCK! Are you serious???? After that we spent another month slowly letting it linger in our day to day lives. We went for one last ditch effort to make a press release, but couldn’t get a single artist (out of the 1,700+ we talked to) to run a sale. My co-founder called me to tell me this news. I asked him “Would you like to use my gun?” I was referring to the scene in The Social Network where Zuckerberg’s lawyer asks Saverin “Would you like to use my pen?” to manipulatively sign his shares over. I, of course, was referring to shooting this fucking company in the head and moving on with our lives! He agreed. We took Zillionears out back, and shot it in the head. It felt good. Although our company did not succeed the way we would have hoped for, we all learned more in the past year than we had in college. Our insights and experiences have been invaluable. For each of my future posts I will go into detail about the things I learned while on this journey, and how to apply the knowledge to future startups so you can avoid ending up in a room with “Dumbo”! Hit me up on twitter! I just got on there. I love to talk to folks about startup experiences! @nemrow