From idea to first sales. Tips for starting a business from successful entrepreneurs. Alexander Semenov
User (the one for whom the product is made)
2. The one who pays the money. Very often, someone who pays money is not a user, for example, mom buys a toy to her son
3. The person making the purchase decision. It may well be that my mother has money, but the decision to buy a toy is made by dad.
4. The one who gives advice to the person making the purchase decision. For example, a person with whom dad consulted.
Basic Principles of Customer Development
Before we go any further, we need you to pay attention to one very important thing: that today we live in a world of oversupply, overproduction, in a world where you can buy everything, there would be money, so now you need to be puzzled not by how to develop your product and «push» it to the market, but by the fact that we discuss every step, every stage of the development of your product-invention with our potential customers and at this stage of discussion we make them our supporters, future buyers.
To solve this problem, several techniques have been devised that allow you to bypass it. One of these methods is called Customer Development. If everyone used to talk about creating a product, now everyone is starting to talk about creating customers. As entrepreneurs, you should not try to find a niche that you will fit into, but create your own niche. When developing a product, you need to interact with your future customers, studying their demand at every step, at every movement around the development of your product. You need to create this audience that will buy from you. Remember that a product is a fairly broad concept. It can be anything you produce, whether it’s buns or a service.
In Customer Development, there are 3 principles to follow:
1. A hypothesis is just a hypothesis. When you go to people and start talking to them, things may not be the way you imagined them to be.
2. Verification-confirmation of hypotheses, confirmation of your facts. You should go to people, talk to them, offer them your product, test this product on them, look at feedback, go back to your office, think about everything you saw, heard, what comments you received, refine your product and go back to people (this is the third principle – cyclicity).
3. The cyclical nature of constant product development. We made a product, tested it on potential customers, realized what needed to be changed, changed it, and went back to testing. And so on until you get a convincing answer from your potential customers that they are satisfied with everything, they like it, they share your thoughts.
Task: think about who you might ask, whose opinion you might be interested in, when you talk about your product, idea, or solution to a problem. Take a pen, paper, and make a list of 20 people you can talk to about your business idea.
The product life cycle. The user path
Very often, when an entrepreneur begins to study customers, the market, build a business, thinks narrowly about his business, in a very narrow area, does customer research, conducts analytics, etc. This is a mistake that does not allow you to see a huge number of opportunities that lie in the time interval when the client before he came to your office, and after he left you. There is a huge amount of advice on how to improve your business, distinguish it from competitors, and make it interesting for the client. How do you find these tips? If we recall the product-oriented approach, there is such a thing as the «Product Lifecycle»:
1. development
2. production
3. delivery to the point of sale
4. sale
5. transportation
6. Installation
7. training in the use of
8. maintenance and repair
9. dismantling
10. removal and disposal of the product
1. Production:
1) own product
2) product according to the customer’s documents
* The steps depend on the specific product
And if you follow this whole wide chain, you will see that in fact you could be useful to the customer both before installing your product, and after he decided to get rid of your product. Moreover, you can find places where you can earn extra money. For example, you can organize training for the customer to use your product. You can do it for free, trying to encourage sales, but you can do it for money. Imagine that you understand that there can be huge problems with the disposal of your product, you cannot just take and throw your goods out on the street, for example, fluorescent lamps, and they need to be disposed of in a special way. You may have the idea of expanding your own business or starting a completely different business related to the disposal of already old, used goods.
The user’s path – the actions and emotions of a person at all stages of the product life cycle. Where the customer was happy with the product, where he had problems with the interaction of your product.
Now, if you superimpose the «product lifecycle» on the «user path», you can be surprised to find the very places of growth of your business where the customer actually had some serious problems with the use of your product or service.
Task: try to suggest what doubts or problems your customer may have at different stages of using your product or service.
The answers can be the basis for making marketing decisions
The consumer matrix is another way to generate a huge number of ideas for your business.
The client:
1. Buys the product
2. Does not buy the product
It’s obvious. But why the customer buys or does not buy – questions that are more difficult to answer. This is what the consumer matrix is for.
There are only 3 options for why the customer uses your product (service) or not, and whether they use it at all. These are the reasons:
Task 1: Find all these six categories of people. Only customers can point out the advantages and disadvantages of your product. People of the first category, ask the question – «Why buy from us?» the arguments of these people will be the basis for communication with those who are still not your client, of two «Why not buy from us?» 3 – «Why buy a substitute product?», 4 – «Why don’t see the value in the product?» – these people will be able to point out the «weaknesses» of your product, of 5 – «Are there Any restrictions?» the answers these people can be the basis for marketing decision making, 6 «In which case the product will be relevant?» As you can see, the quality of the questions determines the quality of the answers. Answers are the basis of communication with potential customers.
You will have only two types of answers:
1. Positive
2. Negative
Also obvious. If everything is clear with the «positive» ones, then you need to work with the negative ones.
Task 2: Write down all the positive and negative reviews in a list, and next to each of the negative reviews, five solutions for how to fix these problems. Solving these problems will improve your product, and therefore increase the number of customers.
Consumer Research
We have only two opportunities to get feedback from people:
1. Interview: you ask questions, listen to answers, and take notes.
2. Observation: see how the customer uses the product, record it.
Task: to conduct