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For those of you that are thinking of starting a new business or researching a business idea, I think you'll get a lot of good info out of this video. It's basically a Q&A session from a panel of startup experts at a conference.
Startup Lessons Learned - Customer Development Panel
I took some notes while watching the video, thought I'd share them with you:
* Every successful startup begins with a product that people need and ideally consider a "must have" product
* If the product is not a "must have", any marketer, great or small, is going to struggle marketing that product. If the product IS a "must have", a mediocre marketer will thrive.
* Customer development is the best way to get to a product that people need and hopefully consider a "must have".
* Establish your hypotheses about the business and take real data from real people / your potential customers
* When trying to determine the viability of a market, look for the people that consider the product a "must have" and figure out what their "use case" is - (how they're going to use the product?).
* How to find data on your competition - Tell them that you're a blogger / journalist / student and you're just looking to do some research and want to learn about their business.
* To gather info on what need is going unfulfilled in the market or what customer's are upset with, buy a domain name with the keywords "(your competitor's name) SUCKS", do adwords using those keywords, have a landing page, and have people comment on your blog / website about WHY your competitor sucks - this will give you feedback on what you can focus on in the market.
* If you're in the R&D phase, but are ready to start contacting potential customers / early adopters of your product for feedback - have a prototype or splash page that will demonstrate to the customer how the system works and how it will benefit them.
* Before you develop your prototype, sit down with the customer over a cup of coffee, and have an informational interview with them to find out what their problems / needs are.
* Spend $0 on PR / marketing until you have a proven income stream. If you don't know where your core sales are coming from, and what works, how do you know what to do PR about?
* Rather than trying to chase multiple markets, in different fields, find out what your core market wants and provide the best value to that market.
* Don't spend money until you have received feedback and have a goal in mind of what your minimum viable product will be.
* Find out right away if you're heading toward a dead-end, that way you can pivot right away in a new direction.
:cheers:
Startup Lessons Learned - Customer Development Panel
I took some notes while watching the video, thought I'd share them with you:
* Every successful startup begins with a product that people need and ideally consider a "must have" product
* If the product is not a "must have", any marketer, great or small, is going to struggle marketing that product. If the product IS a "must have", a mediocre marketer will thrive.
* Customer development is the best way to get to a product that people need and hopefully consider a "must have".
* Establish your hypotheses about the business and take real data from real people / your potential customers
* When trying to determine the viability of a market, look for the people that consider the product a "must have" and figure out what their "use case" is - (how they're going to use the product?).
* How to find data on your competition - Tell them that you're a blogger / journalist / student and you're just looking to do some research and want to learn about their business.
* To gather info on what need is going unfulfilled in the market or what customer's are upset with, buy a domain name with the keywords "(your competitor's name) SUCKS", do adwords using those keywords, have a landing page, and have people comment on your blog / website about WHY your competitor sucks - this will give you feedback on what you can focus on in the market.
* If you're in the R&D phase, but are ready to start contacting potential customers / early adopters of your product for feedback - have a prototype or splash page that will demonstrate to the customer how the system works and how it will benefit them.
* Before you develop your prototype, sit down with the customer over a cup of coffee, and have an informational interview with them to find out what their problems / needs are.
* Spend $0 on PR / marketing until you have a proven income stream. If you don't know where your core sales are coming from, and what works, how do you know what to do PR about?
* Rather than trying to chase multiple markets, in different fields, find out what your core market wants and provide the best value to that market.
* Don't spend money until you have received feedback and have a goal in mind of what your minimum viable product will be.
* Find out right away if you're heading toward a dead-end, that way you can pivot right away in a new direction.
:cheers:
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