I’m not familiar with some of the other books you mentioned, but I’ll check em out. Hopefully they will provide as much value as The Four Steps to the Epiphany has. I’m sure there are lots of great pockets of wisdom and experience out there, but overwhelmingly I find that customer development is still a very flawed process at most startups. But that is changing. Within a few years, I expect it will be standard practice for startups to contract a customer development expert to work alongside the founders through this challenging stage. Clearly we won’t be the only ones providing this service. I’ve encouraged Brant and several others to help us fill this void. I plan in the future to put together a list of individuals and companies that are offering customer development help. In the meantime, feel free to post another comment describing the services that you offer, prices, terms, references, etc.

And a systematic approach to customer development is just part of a broader movement toward lean startups. I had coffee with Eric Reis yesterday and we discussed this ecosystem that is emerging to support a lean startup go to market approach. It is definitely an exciting time to be working with startups.

Eric Ries at http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/ has extended Steve’s model, having worked with him at IMVU, to include Agile and Lean thinking. Babak Nivi of http://www.venturehacks.com/ has also been actively synthesizing a scientific approach to early stage ventures that integrates customer development with Agile, Lean, and the new product introduction models from folks like Don Reinertsen at http://www.reinertsenassociates.com/ who coined the term “Fuzzy Front End” more than two decades ago to capture the evolving nature of early requirements as they are refined by early customer feedback and results from product architecture planning.

And it’s an area our firm also works in as you were kind enough to note on March 9, 2008 after we had had several conversations about Xobni’s situation: “Sean Murphy’s focus on early stage software firms looking for traction and scale mirrors my own. I have found his suggestions and feedback to be honest, direct, and extremely helpful.”

I admire what you are trying to accomplish but I think you should recognize that there are many more folks working on “Customer Development” than just Steve Blank and yourself. In fact reading the earlier comments I was delighted to learn about Brant Cooper at http://market-by-numbers.com/

Since word of mouth is the most powerful “marketing tool” for any startup, and startups lack the money that it will take to get a proper marketing campaign off the ground, product quality is crucial.

Does it solve an important problem?
Does it solve this problem well?
How many people need this solution?

Initially when I started thinking about how to market a startup, I was overwhelmed by the possible actions. This article somewhat clears up my tensions.

Additionally, I really liked your usage of the “curse of knowledge” phrase. I first heard this phrase in the book “The Wisdom of the Crowd.” by James Surowiki.

Finding opinions and ideas outside of the group is crucial.

In startups, positive feedback loops are deadly. Look at Webvan for the results of a positive feedback loop in a startup.

What astounds me, however, is the assumption that customer development happens post-funding. In my experience, it’s difficult to get companies who have already over-promised revenue to fully buy into the program. The pull of opportunism is too strong with the board breathing down your neck. We need to do a better job convincing entrepreneurs to intelligently segment their market, prior to funding; prior to getting themselves into trouble.

Regarding “don’t hire a marketer,” I’m not sure I agree; they just need to hire the right one! : ) I get your (and Blank’s) point, but one doesn’t stop hiring all VPs of Engineering because some don’t know Agile programming. The point is that different companies at various stages of development need marketers with different skill sets. The pre-Madison Ave marketers need to educate investors and technologists about early stage marketing. Like you’re doing!