Comments on: Big Picture Customer Development Revisited

By: Twitter Trackbacks for Big Picture Customer Development Revisited [startup-marketing.com] on Topsy.com

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:48:51 +0000

[...] Big Picture Customer Development Revisited startup-marketing.com/big-picture-customer-development-revisited – view page – cached Working with four startups at the same time has steepened my customer development learning curve (and also explains why — From the page [...]

By: David Langer

David Langer — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:22:57 +0000

Sean, I’ve been enjoying reading your, Steve Blank, Eric Ries & co’s customer development blog posts, tweets etc for a while now. Since I first heard the buzz about customer development I bought Four Steps to the Epiphany and it resonated with some of the things I’m doing with my startup, opened my mind up to some others and made a whole lotta sense.

However…I’m based in the UK where there aren’t so many people to talk to about all this. Have you come across any people in the UK (or anywhere in Europe) who you rate at both understanding and executing customer development strategies with startups?

As a founder I can put into action many of the things I’ve read but I can see significant additional value in getting external input using this methodology (as you have provided at Xobni, Dropbox etc).

By: Chris Hopf

Chris Hopf — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:44:30 +0000

Q: Sean, you asked, “Are you primarily focused on startups?”

A: Yes, startups and those existing companies that want to startup a new path . . . to discover, strengthen, communicate and fully leverage their competitive advantage and position their company for the best results – everyday – every transaction.

A proactive, focused, time-sensitive, “I hate missing opportunities” approach to getting where you want to go, faster. I am told their is a whole lot of value in that

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:34:10 +0000

Thanks for the comment Chris. Are you primarily focused on startups? I’ve had a few companies in Seattle ask if I know any good customer development specialists. Happy to recommend they connect with you.

By: Chris Hopf

Chris Hopf — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:28:09 +0000

BTW – based out of Seattle

By: Chris Hopf

Chris Hopf — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:21:35 +0000

First, I really like the topics you cover on your site Sean . . thanks for sharing your thoughts, insight and experiences.

Second, I appreciate yongfook’s comments on this post as well and understand your point that you need to narrow your efforts to assure you deliver I high level of value to those startups you do work with.

Third, I specialize in value development, value validation, value communication, value pricing and value execution and monitoring. This enables smarter pricing decisions, improves value propositions and optimizes a company’s ability to create and grow paying(and profitable) customers.

Happy to start a conversation with those startups your schedule or focus is unable to accommodate.

Thanks again . . . respectfully,
Chris Hopf

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:29:31 +0000

@yongfook Thanks for the comment. I guess it all depends on your definition of customer development. Since Steve Blank coined the term, I’ll share what he said… He suggested that I’m entering at the validation stage, which is the second step in his “four steps to the epiphany”. At this point you still need to develop a customer acquisition/monetization approach that is scalable and repeatable. One of the key reasons that I don’t start earlier in the process is that revising the product often takes most of the six months that I commit to a startup. At no charge I help startups determine if the product has reached a level where I am a good investment. Otherwise they are better off keeping their burn low.

By: yongfook

yongfook — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:19:03 +0000

Forgive my ignorance, Sean – long time reader first time commenter.

If you vet companies based on whether the product is already gratifying customers, then isn’t a massive part of customer development already taken care of?

It seems like you’re talking about sales optimization rather than customer development. Sales optimization is a largely quantifiable game of metrics and analysis. I’d say that’s the easy part – you have tools and math to make the decisions for you.

The hard part of customer development is dissecting all the unquantifiable stuff, listening to the right customers and making sure they are happy, satisfied and that the product roadmap is aligned with their needs and your business parameters. That’s a stumbling block that a lot of startups never get beyond, I think.

Perhaps the blog post needs expanding (which I’m guessing you’ll be doing over the coming months) after which I’ll have a better understanding of what you mean…