By Ivan Petrenko, Managing Partner Angel One Venture Fund
In the world of startups, where competition is always fierce, Customer Development (CustDev) emerges as the most crucial stage on the path to success. This article is dedicated to the process of creating a CustDev roadmap checklist — a key tool for gathering feedback from prospective customers and developing your startup. We will explore all the steps from finding customers to analysis and improvement, putting in every possible effort to maximize the chances of success.
Customer development is a series of activities that an organization undertakes to discover, test, and validate its business assumptions in order to understand market needs and generate multiple potential solutions. In essence, customer development helps you structure the search for a business model and establish relationships with future customers. There are four key steps in customer development:
- Customer Discovery: This involves the initial search for people interested in your product.
- Customer Validation: This step is about testing the hypothesis that your customers are ready to buy the product.
- Customer Creation: Here, you work on building demand and awareness for your solution by activating sales channels.
- Building the Company: In this phase, you attract investments and adapt the product to meet customer needs.
All the answers can be found in the Customer Development methodology, which originates from Silicon Valley and is a part of the Lean Startup approach.
This methodology is based on the fact that about 95% of all startups fail due to two subtle assumptions. The first is assuming that the customer’s problem is already known, and the second is assuming that the product’s features are already known. This means that startup founders often think they know what their customer’s problem is and what features the product requires, but they may be wrong. To discover what customers truly require, the principles of customer development are employed.
The first step is to understand your prospective customer. Whether you already have traction or are just starting out, Customer Development remains relevant. Ask yourself two key questions: “What problem are we solving?” and “Who is our customer?” Forget about the product for the moment; it’s about understanding your customer’s needs.
Successful startups testify that working on their business models typically takes anywhere from a few months to half a year. This illustrates that planning and developing a startup is a lengthy and complex process.
Every startup has competitors. It’s crucial to know who they are and how you differentiate from them. Unfortunately, many startups overlook this, though it can be a recipe for failure.
A pivotal moment for a startup is recognizing its competitors. Understanding that competitors always exist is vital, and failing to acknowledge this fact can lead to failure.
Creating a CustDev roadmap checklist is a step toward systematizing your approach to product development. Compile a list of tasks, define success metrics, establish the task order, and develop a schedule.
An example of a successful transformation is the company Unicorn, which initially planned to manufacture mattresses for students at festivals, but later transitioned to renting out accommodation. This change in the business model helped them become a leading player in the hospitality industry.
Interviews with potential customers are a crucial step. Guide them toward providing feedback rather than selling them a product. Record the interviews and analyze the gathered information.
The “Jobs to be done” methodology is a powerful tool for understanding customer needs and desires. A notable example of its successful application is the research conducted at McDonald’s, which helped them understand that customers were buying milkshakes in the morning to make their commute from work to home more enjoyable.
Analyze the feedback and data collected from customers and make adjustments to the CustDev roadmap checklist. Learn from mistakes, as there will be plenty. Tesla is an example of a company known for its value map. They take into account their customers’ needs, pains, and gains. Their success lies in understanding what their customers want from personal mobility and which pains need to be addressed.
Creating a CustDev roadmap checklist is the key to your startup’s success. It’s a tool that can help you systematize your customer search and understanding, analyze the feedback received, and continually improve your product. Remember that mistakes will be part of the journey, but it’s essential to learn from them and never give up on the quest for the perfect solution for your customers.
