While truly new markets have no history, their business model parameters can be estimated by what they replace or substitute for.
Q: How Do I Calculate Business Model Parameters For A Novel Product? Read More »
Q: We have been in customer discovery for a few months and have a situation in a negotiation that I am not sure how to deal with. A decision maker at a potential customer says he believes that our product can help but it’s not addressing a burning problem. The wrinkle that I have not
Q: Side Payment Requested In Negotiation Read More »
Q: My research focused on the assessment of atherosclerosis in coronary arteries using Computed Tomography examinations as the imaging modality. I have looked at various aspects of atherosclerosis such as volume scores, automatic extraction of anatomical structures, plaque detection, dual energy CT and plaque distribution patterns. I am new to the lean innovation methods and am
Q: How to Apply Lean Innovation Methods To Regulated Industries? Read More »
The prisoners dilemma thought experiment that posits a single isolated transaction as the entire relationship does not offer a good model for business and dealing with prospects, customers, partners, suppliers, employees, or really anyone. Q: Is the Prisoners Dilemma A Good Model for Doing Business? Q: I am currently working on a degree in Computer
Q: Is the Prisoners Dilemma A Good Model for Doing Business? Read More »
Product-market fit is not a ratchet: competitive response, new entrants, changes in technology and customer preference require ongoing customer development. You will need to continue to do customer development–and customer discovery for that matter–even after you have a first prototype, an MVP, early customers, and an established niche. Markets and competitors don’t stand still, no
Q: We Already Have a Prototype, Can We Still Do Customer Development? Read More »
Q: I am starting a service business that will help clients with advertising and search engine marketing but I am not sure how to price my services. Do you have any suggestions for how to look at pricing professional services?
Q: Pricing Professional Services Read More »
Q: I run a SaaS B2B startup that boosts employee engagement by bringing co-workers together for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. We have an MVP. We have done some customer development interviews and have half a dozen potential early adopter customers. The next step would be to do a free pilot of our product on a subset of
Q: How To Speed Up Early Trials, Adoption, and Sales Read More »
Q: I have worked on large enterprise software systems but am now struggling working at a startup creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). I am a big believer in BDD and TDD, so I’ve developed an automated testing suite for the MVP that has high coverage and great specifications describing and asserting its behaviors in
Q: How Much Effort Should I Invest in Automated Testing For An MVP? Read More »
Instead of looking left and right for potential competition, I would walk around the table and look at the situation from your prospect’s perspective.
Q: How Much Attention Should I Pay To Potential Competition? Read More »
Don’t do a big launch before you have completed customer discovery or you are running a very expensive test of your key customer and market hypotheses.
Q: Can We Launch First and Ask Customer Discovery Questions Later? Read More »
One question entrepreneurs ask themselves is whether to persevere or get a job. What follows is an email exchange that has been edited into a Q&A.
Q: Should I Persevere With My Product Or Get A Job? Read More »
Q: We have started selling and are looking for resources for a lean approach to sales, in particular for new product introduction. Lean Approach To Sales at Lean Startup Conference 2012 Scott Sambucci and I presented a workshop at Lean Startup 2012 on “Engineering Your Sales Process.” The deck is posted at http://www.slideshare.net/SalesQualia/engineering-your-sales-process About 70%
Q: Resources For A Lean Approach to Sales, In Particular New Product Introduction Read More »
It can be difficult to put a price on a new product service, much less to develop a pricing model you can use to offer pricing to many different prospects. Here are some tips.
Q: How To Pull The Trigger On A Pricing Model Read More »
Q: We have a SaaS offering that has been on the market for three years now and we have several dozen paying customers. Our offering is useful for firms with more than a hundred employees up to several thousand and is licensed at a corporate level. We have only lost two customers, one was acquired
Q: Customer Exit Interview Questions Read More »
Here are some back of the envelope models to estimate prospect counts and market sizes.
Q: How To Estimate Prospect Counts and Market Sizes Read More »
Q: I am part of a hardware/embedded device startup working on our MVP. We want to develop a minimum product to cut our initial development costs and iterate scientifically through experimentation. My concern is that State governments are my primary customer type and their buying model is to do a pilot project and then write what
Q: How Do You Iterate An MVP So That It’s “Good Enough For Government Work” Read More »
Q: I am a newly minted entrepreneur who has been developing a technology product for an emerging market (state-legalized marijuana) that is proving especially hard to crack. I am a long-standing business strategist who understands and appreciates the imperatives of customer development, however have been very unsuccessful in getting business owners and consumers to open
Mission Often Matters More Than Monetization In An Early Market Read More »
Entrepreneurship gets a lot of hype but it’s not for everyone: here is a brief discussion of some of practical realities of what it’s like to work at a startup.
Q: Should I Get A Normal Job Or Work At A Startup? Read More »
Q: I was contracted to develop a custom software application that I delivered with a minimum set of features the client requested so that it was simple to use. Once my client is satisfied should I try and market it? There are similar products available but mine is simpler and I can afford to offer it
Q: Can a Custom Solution Be The Basis For A Product? Read More »
Building the “wrong product” is not a waste of time you learn about the market and technical feasibility. Right and wrong are both gray, not black or white. Customer development and technical development typically require a sequence of prototypes that are “less wrong” over time under they become good enough.
Q: Is Building The Wrong Product A Waste Of Time? Read More »
