Tag Archives: Customer Development

C-P-S Hypothesis Part 2: Customer

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So in the second part of the series of posts on my C-P-S hypothesis I am focusing on the target CUSTOMER. If you have missed the previous post you can read about the process I am following here.

So I have been spending the last month talking about this business idea with friends, family and business associates and through these discussions the idea has morphed and changed and I hope that it continues to do so.

One of the most common pivots in Lean Startups is the Customer Segment Pivot- where after some investigation you find out that you have a solution that is solving a problem but not for the customer segment you initially thought.

As I mentioned briefly yesterday my initial focus was on individuals. Particularly those who are passionate about  personal development and are willing and keen to improve elements of their lives; but who are frustrated at both the resources available and who are frustrated at spending money on resources that are not delivering results.

At the first Lean Startup Meetup in Edinburgh on Monday two main points came up when we were discussing the idea:

The first was whether there was actually enough people who are interested in improving their lives? Granted this was coming from a self-confessed cynic of self-help but this is definitely something I would like to quantify. My gut says that while there is a lot of apathy out there, there is also a lot of very driven and passionate people (many of whom I am glad to call friends). Not to mention that Heidi Grant Halvorson recent blog post Nine Things Successful People Do Differently on Harvard Business Review is the most viewed blog in HBR’s history. This blog post speaks very much to my target audience.

The second point that was discussed was the needs of businesses and the particular problems they face with training and development of their staff- this is something that I have to review and get out there and speak to businesses.

As I was reading Running Lean and contemplating the often overlooked distinction between a customer and a user it got me into thinking.

Rather than thinking of the business as a provider of content to individuals what about providing those with content-trainers, coaches and even businesses- with a platform to more effectively deliver and track the implementation of the training. The customer will be the content provider who will bundle it into their offering and the user will be the individuals who are going through the training.

I am looking forward to lining up some formal Customer Discovery interviews across all three customer segments: individuals, coaches/trainers and businesses. As I work through the Customer Discovery process and establish the customer this will have big impacts on the business model and the solution that we provide.

There is no doubt that I have had the best conversations with those who don’t know me. While speaking to friends and family is great for support and motivation very rarely do they challenge you and ask the hard questions that need to be asked.

If you fall into one of these groups and you are interested in getting involved in this process I would love to hear from you.

Tomorrow we will be looking at the SOLUTION to the problem.

C-P-S Hypothesis Part 1: The problem we’re looking to solve

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As with many startups the idea for the business is borne out of frustration at what currently exists in the personal development/self-help and wider training space.

I spend a lot of time reading personal development books and attending/delivering training sessions (both in and out of the work-place) and while I have seen significant positive changes to my life I am often left wanting.

It is not that the content is lacking; there has never been more high-quality information available to individuals to help improve our lives or our businesses. Yet there remains a massive disconnect between the goals that we are setting and the results we achieve.

As I see it (and these are just assumptions that need validating) the problem comes in the delivery of the information, the implementation of the principles and the follow through.

At the moment most resources deliver (a lot of) content at once and suggest actions to follow through on. This is usually in the form of printing off a PDF and filling in the details- this is the same approach that Benjamin Franklin used in the 1700’s. So I print off the documents fill them in, plan to follow through and then invariably lose the PDF or leave it at home when I am travelling.

The issue with so much of the training that is delivered on-line at the moment is that it is a one way conversation. They continuously hit you with information with no input from the user. For example, in my research I signed up to the 100 day challenge on-line. I started on day 1 but by day 5 I was away from work and missed a couple of days. However the training continued without me and by the time I got back into it I had missed so much that I gave up. The program assumed I had been interacting and carried on anyways. That’s not to say anything about the videos not being viewable on mobile devices.

It is all very well spending lots of money on top training and resources but with the best will in the world if the individuals don’t follow through on what they have learned then it has been a waste of time, money and effort. We have all had the experience of reading a great book or attending a great training session and being full of motivation to carry out the learnings only for that motivation to wane as the days pass and life gets in the way. Trainers and coaches lack the ability/time to keep in touch with every individual and re-enforce the implementation of the concepts learnt through the training in between sessions.

When it comes to changing behaviour/habits (and that is what all training and personal development is about) it is not the amount of effort you put in but rather the consistency of the activity. The new behaviour is re-enforced by positive actions every day but this is not easily measured and monitored and often people give up too early because they are not seeing the results. Simply by re-enforcing the positive action of individuals and articulating the progress they are making can significantly increase the chances of them sticking with the process.

There are many, many reasons why people fail to achieve their goals not least because it is is a very hard thing to do. It ultimately comes down to the individuals desire to succeed. However, it is my belief that through the effective use of technology we can remove many of the barriers highlighted above make it much easier to succeed and thereby increase the chances of businesses and individuals achieving their goals.

If you are interested in or involved in training or personal development and you are facing problems that I have not highlighted I would love to hear from you.

I have recognised through my initial discussions with people that I have been approaching the problem from a very individual-centric point of view. There may be some value in exploring the problems that businesses are facing with training and personal development through the customer development. This is something I will explore more in the customer  section of the C-P-S blog post.

A Problem Focused Startup

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I was reading Running Lean by Ash Maurya while sitting in a coffee shop in SoHo in NYC when I realised that I that I was falling into a trap that catches out a lot of startups and I was starting down a path that was increasing my chances of failure.

Mauraya recommends identifying the greatest risks in the business and reducing the riskiest first. The book forced me to look at the business idea from a difference angle. The biggest risk in the majority of startups lies in developing an offering that nobody wants and this is one of the biggest reasons for the failure of startups.

I instantaneously recognised that I have been focusing too much attention on the solution and not enough time on the problem I am looking to solve. This is a sure-fire way to develop an offering that nobody wants.

I can attest from personal experience that this is a very easy trap to fall into. It is far too easy to get carried away once you realise that you can build a solution to a problem that you have identified, especially when a few people have validated the idea. This is not enough. With enough time, money and effort most things can be built. The question is no longer can it be built but rather should we build it, and can we build a sustainable business around the offering.

I can also see why many founders resist getting out and speaking to potential customers as that will inevitably result in many of the assumptions being challenged that will impact the solution and this isn’t always an easy thing to accept

While I was annoyed at myself for falling into a very obvious trap I am very glad that I recognised it early on as it allows me to take action.

Over the next week or two I will outline the business idea in more detail and the Customer Development process I plan on following and I welcome all your input, feedback and comments.

Challenge all assumptions in business

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I read an interesting article by Alex Cheatle (The Founder of Ten Group) in the Entrepreneur section of the Financial Times this weekend that warns business leaders to be wary of old business axioms.

I could not agree with Alex more and as someone at the very early stages of a startup (I am still working my notice at my job) I have found the principles laid out by The Lean Startup movement offer some degree of antidote to the malaise. At the core of The Lean Startup movement is the belief that we should challenge all assumptions about business. The whole process revolves around turning these assumptions to facts- or at least to find out that our assumptions are incorrect as early as possible.

The movement has grown in one sense from the response to the question- “Why do so many startups fail?”

The short answer is that companies of all sizes spend too much time, money and effort developing products and services that nobody wants or needs.

The Lean Startup movement offers a framework to allow entrepreneurs to better manage the process as they test their assumptions about their customer offering and the potential to build a business around the idea.

As Reis points out, in this day and age the question is no longer can we build it but should we?

Although it was The Lean Startup book by Eric Reis that initially caught my (and the worlds) attention, the wider movement is much greater than one book or one individual and it has inspired me to read wider and deeper. It is a movement that is gathering pace worldwide albeit with much more velocity in the US than in the UK and is having a significant impact on the whole startup ecosystem.

The words ‘startup’ and ‘entrepreneur’ conjour up many thoughts in people’s minds- both positive and negative. It is important at this stage to state that all the proponents are keen to point out that the terms startup and entrepreneur are not restricted to college students in their dorm room.

“a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”

Steve Blank

 I am hesitant to refer to the movement as an ‘Entrepreneurial Enlightenment’ as some have done but it is doing some great work in rethinking the approach to starting up in business with the aim of improving the success rate of startups.

If you are involved in a startup or are in the process of developing a product within an established business and you are not aware of The Lean Startup movement then I highly recommend reading some of the fantastic content online as a starting poing. The following websites are a great starting point:

http://theleanstartup.com/

http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

There are a lot of assumptions out there about startups and business in general, it is imperative that we test and challenge these assumptions, this is how we can truly innovate and succeed.

Join me on the journey as I challenge all the assumptions I have about business!