A Holistic Approach to Launching a Bootstrapped Startup
We outline the process of launching a bootstrapped startup, from creating an idea, to forming a team, to proving viability.
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Customer Development
40 Tips for B2B Customer Development Interviews
This post on B2B customer development interviews builds on one of my most popular. If you would like help preparing for customer development interviews or reviewing results from recent interviews, contact us. Here are my lessons learned from taking part in interviews where the startup planned to offer a product or service to a business.
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A Self-Assessment: Are You Working on the Right Risks?
Take our self-assessment to verify that your team is working on the right risks. Identify the capabilities you need to develop next.
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Q: What Makes a Product Attract Early Adopters?
The following is an edited version of a recent online conversation I had with a team of bootstrappers about how to make their product attract early adopters.
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Lee Carter on the Value of Direct Observation
A Q&A with Lee Carter where we explore the value of direct observation of customer environments to complement customer interviews. Lee shares details of a project he worked on where direct observation provided a valuable complement to a basic product specification.
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Qualitative Research: Problem Exploration for Lean Startups
Key points from Mary Sorber’s presentation on “Qualitative Research: Problem Exploration for Lean Startups” at Lean Culture July-31-2018.
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David Telleen-Lawton on Customer Discovery Meetings at Lean Culture Tue-Jun-26-2018
David Telleen Lawton will offer a detailed briefing on the nuts and bolts of Customer Discovery Meetings from a sales perspective at Lean Culture on Tue-Jun-26-2018.
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How To Scale Up Qualitative Research Efforts
Qualitative research that allows firms to understand unmet and emerging needs is now the bottleneck for the specification, development, and delivery of significant new products. This is the result of substantial investment in the last two decades in tools for software development, quantitative evaluative research, marketing and sales. This has fundamental implications for how product
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Entrepreneur as Detective
Exploration and discovery constitute significant activities for entrepreneurs. There are various metaphors–for example entrepreneur as researcher, entrepreneur as scientist, entrepreneur as journalist–this post uses entrepreneur as detective as a metaphor.
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Don’t Explore Thoughtland In Interviews
Whether you are interviewing potential employees or potential customers, don’t explore Thoughtland with a focus on predictions and beliefs. Instead, explore actual behavior and prior experience.
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Scouting a Promising Market: Sending Spies Into Canaan
The difference between scouting a new market and scouting a promising market is that the former may not exist–or come into existence–while the latter clearly exists because it’s already occupied.
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Howard Marks: “Dare To Be Great”
Howard Marks wrote “Dare to be Great” in 2006 as a summary of challenges for successful investment: you have to be unconventional but correct. This advice applies to startups as well.
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Mark Williamson, CTO of Hanzo Archives, on Validating Startup Ideas
Mark Hanzo, CTO of Hanzo Archives, was interviewed by SimpleWeb as part of a series on validating startup ideas. I found his remarks on very practical and insightful and have added some observations of my own.
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Chip Conley: Reconceive Bewilderment As Curiosity
Chip Conley shares how he was able to look at AirBNB’s operation with newcomer’s eye when he chose to reconceive bewilderment as curiosity.
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Q: How Do I Make Sure I Understand The Customer’s Problem and Present a Vision of a Solution?
Customer development–discovery driven sales–requires that you first understand the customer’s problem then present a vision of a solution. If that is acceptable you can proceed to a demonstration that provides technical proof of value.
Newsletter May 2017: New Market Exploration
Our May 2017 Newsletter features four articles on new market exploration, one of the most difficult customer development challenges that entrepreneurs face. It requires strong interview, observation, and sense making skills.
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Q: Best Practices For Finding Early Adopters
There are a lot of misconceptions about finding early adopters of a new product or technology. It’s a question that comes up often in early market exploration: this post is a summary of my experience and current best thinking.
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Nine Rules from Monetizing Innovation
I am at the Intrapreneurship Conference in Palo Alto today and “Monetizing Innovation” by Madhavan Ramanujam and George Tacke. The book is a fast read that incorporates a some pricing theory into new product introduction, here are nine rules they offer for a successful innovation.
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Q: Helping Customers On Hold
It’s important to understand who your customer is and what their critical business needs are. Helping customers is only possible once you have identified who you are truly serving (who will pay you) and which of their needs or problems you can help them address.
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The Customer Determines The Details That Matter
The customer determines the details that matter in assessing the quality of your product. Here is a true story where this was brought home to me.
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