Startup Science 2017 ③

Startup Science ③
"Making a successful startup is an Art.
Making a startup that doesn’t fail is a Science.”
Created by
Masa Tadokoro

Agenda
① Idea Verification : What is a good start-up idea?
② Customer-problem Fit: Does the issue really exist?
③ Problem-solution Fit:
④ Product-Market Fit:
Do you provide an appropriate
solution to the issue?
Copyright 2017 Masayuki Tadokoro All rights reserved
Does the market for the solution
exist?

Customer Problem Fit
Examine issues
and assumptions
Build a issue
Hypothesis
Clarify issue of customers
(Leveraging Persona
sheet, Empathy map
Customer journey etc）
Clarify if the
customer truly
has the issues
2-1 2-3
Clarify
Assumptions
Verify
Assumptions
with Javelin board
2-2
Verify the fit between
founders
Founder
Issue
fit

Transforming a mere idea into
high quality hypothesis

①
②
High quality
idea
Low quality
idea
Focus on making issue
quality higher!
Quality of issue
Quality of
solution
High
HighLow
Low

Good idea
Idea looks bad
Most of ideas which look
bad are
just bad ideas

Most important question:
Does the issue really exist?

X
Never start with
“What do I want to build?”

Why are we
using the iPhone?
❓

Users use iPhone
since it solves
problems
iPhone

It is not because iOS7 is installed

Why do many
start-ups skip
this question?
❓

”Customers don’t care
about your solution.
They care about
their problems”
Dave McClure
500 Startups
“Running Lean ―Iterate from Plan A to Plan that works”

X
Focus on the question, are “customers’ painful
issues” in real?

Because we all have bias;
“my problem is your problem too
because the problem is obvious to me”.

By conditioning
for a few seconds,
you are biased！
”I can see
an old woman”
”I can see
a young lady”

We all have biases through our perspective.
In other words, we are seeing the world
with the way we want to see it.
This is called "confirmation bias"

Entrepreneur's confirmation bias ＝
"With my solution, the customer's
Problem will be solved"

Confirmation bias is
an innate human behavior.
We are always collecting information
to prove that our thoughts/beliefs
are correct.

Take notice that
entrepreneurial people
tend to have stronger
confirmation bias than
others.

Keep one thing in your mind
when you start a startup:
the issues and solutions
you initially make as assumptions
will often be discovered to be false.
Cindey Alperez
Author, “Lean Customer Development”
“Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy” by
Cindy Alvarez

It's important to
visualize/verbalize
how you are perceiving
the world.

A big difference with perspective
among founders occasionally leads to
a falling out with the team,
and the startup itself.

Document Sharing
Common Understanding

Common understanding
＋ Convincing
Visualizing process/thoughts/
hypothesis

Lean canvas is a tool
by which each member can visualize and
confirm the “business model”
Team
Lean canvas of your business

Misunderstanding led by “lean
startup”
“I need to release an MVP
asap no matter what"

Build
Ideas
Product
Mea
sure
Data
Learn
Building an MVP based
on an idea - it usually
takes several months
Make an MVP
people don’t want
ll
The largest
waste in a startup

Build
Ideas
Product
Mea
sure
Data
Learn
Product
Solution-fit
Customer
Problem-fit
Create
Plan A
Verify riskiest
assumptions
before building
an MVP
→ Do this
process first!
You can save
resources

①
②
High quality
idea
Low quality
idea
Quality of issue
Quality of
solution
High
HighLow
Low
The first to do：
Examine the hypothesis to
improve the issue quality

Build
Issue Hypothesis

Making assumptions
about your customer (creating a persona)
and focusing on their emotional status.

Within persona sheet,
you can describe
the person who is suffering
from the issue -
the issue you are trying to solve.

If there are multiple user models ( personas ), the verification
process won't go so smoothly, as a result, it is hard to reach
consensus in a short period. It is important to presume one
persona, you can correct it later.
Make an assumption of the
most plausible Persona

Make a hypothesis on Persona
What does he(she)
look like?
What’s the
Impression?
Age, occupation,
gender, income,
hobby, life style,
what kind of work
does the person do?
What does the
person want
to achieve
What are
the person’s
painful
issues
What kind of
issues/operation
does he(she) do?
Action Features?
IT and smartphone
Literacy.

"Service providers will
unintentionally rely on
the customers‘ affections.
Providers tend to believe
that customers can do this
by themselves without
the provider's support".
- Sano CEO/founder of Cookpad
“The business named ‘Cookpad’ supported by 6 million women”

Wipe out myths of
customers believed
among suppliers
“Female customers
easily go away if the
response is late”
“Female customers
could wait longer”
Myths Fact

Write a persona who has the issue,
which you wrote about in the
previous exercise.
Exercise
❓

Go through
the customer experience.
Subjective experience is
hard to be quantified.
Persona, Customer story, Customer journey may
help you render verbalization, formalization,
clarifying causal relationships

Take a closer look at user sentiment.
It is important to seek specific complaints and
pains by taking a closer look at user
sentiment.
People are sometimes tricky. They do things
which they actually don't want to do. You can
find the answer when you take a closer look at this
contradicting behavior.
It is important to think of their psychological
status through their behavior.

Ability needed for founders:
Clarify storytelling from
a customer viewpoint.

What does she think and feel?
What really counts major preoccupations
worries & aspirations
What does she see?
Environment, Friends,
What the market offers
What does she say and
do?
Attitude in public appearance
behavior toward others
What does he hear?
what friends say
what boss says
what influencers say
Gain：
wants/needs
measures of
success
obstacles
Pain：
fears
frustrations
obsacles

Honda,Super Cub
sold more than 96 million units.
Super cub

Persona of Super Cub -
a delivery boy of a soba-noodle restaurant

You need to implement a pedal clutch since
a delivery boy can not manipulate a clutch
with his hand.

Easy to straddle
With this design, a delivery boy can ride
easily without dropping
his soba noodles.

Write empathy map based on your
persona.
Exercise
❓

The persona image you build
depends on your experience and
perception of the world.

Team
It is important that everybody on the team is on the
same page by visualizing the persona/empathy map.

Clarify current user
experience.

You want to specify a detailed
user story since just writing
a persona is too ambiguous.

“I‘ve often been asked
what made the USJ
V-shaped turnaround.
I changed the system and value
proposition of USJ to
respect the customer's viewpoint"
Tsuyoshi Morioka: Marketer
The only way to have changed USJ drastically:
Introduction to Marketing attracting success

You can clarify
the story of the user,
step-by-step, by using the
user story framework.

An advantage of creating customer story
The idea would be
shared in your team
You may find things
overlooked in your story
map
Unconventional ideas
may occur
Your product would make
customers think it is
special to them

Step 1.
Confirming persona, empathy map and
the lean canvas you have previously created.

Customer story creation phase 1:
Divide the issue into 6 parts
Step
Touch Point
Action
Thought
Emotion
Current
Problem

Write down the steps that the imagined persona would take
Step
Touch Point
Action
Thought
Emotion
Current
Problem

Write down the actions that the imagined persona would do.
Step
Touch Point
Action
Thought
Emotion
Current
Problem

Write down the thoughts that she may have behind the
actions.
Step
Touch Point
Action
Thought
Emotion
Current
Problem

Write down people, shops, websites, apps, systems
appearing in each step
Step
Touch Point
Action
Thought
Emotion
Current
Problem

Customer story making phase 6：
Write down her emotional fluctuations in each step
Step
Touch Point
Action
Thought
Emotion
Current
Problem
Think at which point customers
will get angry?
What is the pain in each
step？

Try to clarify
unpleasant emotional
status of the person
Why is the persona
unsatisfied?

Step/
Action
Real Intention
（Depth
Psychology）
What is the real
intention behind
of the steps/
actions?
Customer’s behavior
coming to the surface

Customer story making phase 7：
Write down current problems by looking down on the map
Step
Touch Point
Actions
Thought
Emotion
Current
Problem

何を課題に
感じているのか
Name Catherin Hamlet
Age 25 years old
Origin Sydney, Australia
Hobby
Backpacking, Photography,
Movie
Occupation
Working as a nurse in her
hometown, Sydney. She
is working in a hospital
for the 3rd consecutive
year after graduating university
Life Style
Traveling all over the world is something to live for
. She is backpacking twice a year which is worth living.
Preference in
travel
When she travels to another country, she tries to collect local
information. She'd rather respect tips and experience
that can only be attained by local people and places than
from books or the internet.
IT literacy
She sometimes posts on Facebook. The messenger app she uses is
Whatsapp. The photos she likes to take are posted on
Instagram. She posts photos taken in many other apps

What does she think and feel?
What really counts major
preoccupations worries &
aspirations
What does she see?
Environment, Friends,
What the market offers
What does she say and do?
Attitude in public appearance
behavior toward others
What does he hear?
what friends say
what boss says
what influencers say
Gain：
wants/needs
measures of
success
obstacles
Pain：
fears
frustrations
obsacles

Pain
Hear See
Gain
Say
Think
I'm excited about going to Japan but I
am on a budget.
I have to save during the trip.
I want to always keep records
of the trip posting on SNS (Facebook, Instagram)
Having a good traveling experience while saving
money is awesome!
I'll travel to Japan for the first time next month and
collect many kinds of tips about Japan.
A friend of mine traveled
to Japan and seems to have
enjoyed it a lot. I'll ask her for
travel tips.
Japan is a tech advanced
country so that they must
have tools or service
s which
support tourists.
Gotta
check them out.
I'm traveling so I can find the
best local services and information.

Backpacker, Catherin has come to Japan for
the first time.
Writing a story about how she gets to a hotel
and check-in from Narita Airport with a
smartphone connected to public wifi

Step
Action
Emotional
Fluctuation
Arrival at Airport Transition Hotel
Landi
ng
Custo
ms
Picking
luggage
Connect
to wifi
Heads to
a station
Goes to
the
store.
Buy
ticket
Transit in
the
station
Wait for
a train
Departure
Arrive at the
destination
Try to
connect to
wifi
Get off
Look for
hotel
walk
Check-in
Connect
to hotel
wifi
Take a
shower
Touch Point
Airport
wifi
Wifi at
convenienc
e store
Station
wifi
Wifi in
train
Subway
wifi
Hotel
wifi
Think
Wifi is
slow
Fast, but
available
only in the
shop
Wifi is slow
wifi use
costs
¥300!
Wifi is slow
Cozy
connection
to wifi!
Write down a story where she gets to
the hotel after arriving in Japan
Catherin (25 yrs old)
Tourist Inbound to Japan
Nationality: Australia
Personality: A heavy smartphone
user

Look down on
the story to
build an issue
hypothes
Frustration is accumulates by bad wifi
connectivity in the airport and the convenience
store

・Write down words immediately after ideas
occur to you
・Explain details on Post-Its and cards
・Arrange Post-Its to let anyone see, point, add, move
・Don't chase perfection (revise them periodically)
・The tool is only to find customers‘ pain points
・Recognize it is not panacea
Note in Mapping

Better customer stories
create a better understanding of
various customer behaviors.

Write down a customer story
according to the persona.
Exercise
❓

Verifying assumptions of the issue
by using a Javelin Board

What is Javelin Board?
It is a framework where you
can verify customer/issues/
assumptions/solutions through
dialogue with actual potential
customers

Step１：
Brainstorm customers based on persona, empathy map, lean
canvas and user story, which you previously created. Pick up
the most plausible customer and move it to the right side of the table

Step２：
Brainstorm issues. What kind of issue does the selected
customer have? Pick up the issue you want to take on and
move it to right side of the table.

Step
Action
Emotional
Fluctuation
Arrival at Airport Transition Hotel
Landi
ng
Custo
ms
Picking
luggage
Connect
to wifi
Heads to
a station
Goes to
the
store.
Buy
ticket
Transit in
the
station
Wait for
a train
Departure
Arrive at the
destination
Try to
connect to
wifi
Get off
Look for
hotel
walk
Check-in
Connect
to hotel
wifi
Take a
shower
Touch Point
Airport
wifi
Wifi at
convenienc
e store
Station
wifi
Wifi in
train
Subway
wifi
Hotel
wifi
Think
Wifi is
slow
Fast, but
available
only in the
shop
Wifi is slow
wifi use
costs
¥300!
Wifi is slow
Cozy
connection
to wifi!
user

Step ３：
Brainstorm valid solutions to the selected issue.
Pick it up and move it to the right side of the table.

Tourist in
Japan
Wifi spot less
available
Watch ads
to get data
volume
user

Premise ⑤
Hotel wifi
is slow
Premise ⑥
Airport wifi
is slow
Premise ⑦
Tourist
frequently
use wifi
Usability of
free Wifi is
not good
Issue hypotheses
Premise ①
Tourists
do not have
pocket wifi
Premise ②
Tourists
have
smart phone
Premise ③
Tourists
don’t know
fast wifi spot
Premise ④
Tourists
consumes
heavy content
i.e movie
Brainstorm the
assumptions of
issue hypotheses

Impact: Large
Impact: Small
UncertainSelf-evident
(Need to verify)（No need to verify）
The assumption you need
to verify in the first place
Step 4: Confirm premises for the issue hypothesis and map them in
the perspective of the magnitude of impact (Impact to the validity of the issue)
and magnitude of certainty.
Premise ①
Tourists
do not have
pocket wifi
Premise ④
Tourists
consumes
heavy content
i.e movie
Premise ②
Tourists
have
smart phone
Premise ⑤
Hotel wifi
is slow
Premise ③
Tourists
don’t know
fast wifi spot
Premise ⑥
Airport wifi
is slow
Premise ⑦
Tourist
frequently
use wifi

Pickup uncertain yet impactful assumptions
of the issue. If the assumption is not valid,
the issue will be made redundant.

Step 5: Determine verification method and
its criteria, e.g. 6 out of 10 interviewees
say "yes" in the interview.

Get out of the Building!

Set up one-on-one interview in
order to get honest feedback.
*Avoid one-to-N interviews, since you cannot
hear open opinions

Five Principles for Conducting
Good Interviews
１ Know the personality of the person you interview with
Dig out the personality of the interviewer to see if he/she is an early
adopter
２ Become the disciple of the user
To become the disciple of the user is a best way to bring out his/her
best insight
To pullout his/her suggestive insight, focusing on listening and
questioning, not talking about your self

Good Interviews
３ See to the interviewer’s non-verbal communication
Not only to listen to what customer says, see to what customer
expresses by body language
４ Be an interviewer
Founder himself/herself be an interviewer
５ Analysis the content of the interview
Analysis what the interviewer told to dig out the real intention of
his/her

Key-points of the
User Interview

Good Interviews
３ See to the interviewer’s non-verbal communication
Not only to listen to what customer says, see to what customer
expresses by body language
４ Be an interview owner
Founder himself/herself be an interview owner
５ Analysis the content of the interview
Analysis what the interviewer told to dig out the real intention of
his/her

Principle ①
Know the personality of the person
you are interviewing.

Check if he/she is qualified as a early
adopter during the interview.

予算取得済みもしくは
予算の獲得可能
製品の寄せ集めで
何とかソリューションを持っている
積極的にソリューション
を探求している
課題の認知している
課題の探求している
アーリーアダプター/
Evangelist Userは
この５つの特徴を持つ
Steve Blank

Early adopter will determine
your business model of Plan A

Be a disciple of the user
to get his/her good insight.
Principle ②

Utilize the Context Question Flow
Ask for teaching
Ask about every
detail of it
Confirmation
Find questions in
the dialogue
Ask for teaching Ask for teachingAsk for teaching
Ask about every
detail of it
Ask about every
detail of it
Ask about every
detail of it
ConfirmationConfirmation Confirmation
Find questions in
the dialogue
Find questions in
the dialogue
Find questions in
the dialogue

Disciples learn from the masters.
Masters (users) are experts of [issues],
but they are not experts of describing
the issues they have.
Your job is to clarify what the master says
Become a disciple
of the user.

Ask for teaching
Ask about every
detail of it
Confirmation
Find questions in
the dialogue
Ask about every
detail of it
Ask about every
detail of it
Ask about every
detail of it
Find questions in
the dialogue
Find questions in
the dialogue
Find questions in
the dialogue

Shut-up and Listen to the customer!
Listening to the customer is key.

Ask
open
questions

Be quiet for
next 60 seconds.

Dig Deeper for Answers
“I see, that’s very interesting.
Can you elaborate on it more?”

4 principles for good questions.
1 Focusing on now - not the future:
The current action/behavior is the best hint to make a hypothesis for the
future. Assumptions for the future are usually wrong.
2 Focusing on the concrete - not abstract:
Ask "how many times did that happen" rather than "how often does it
happen” Ask "please describe actual operation”
Ask "How much would you pay in order to solve the issue" rather than "how
much would you pay when the product will be launched”
Ask very specific questions so that you can pull insights.
3 Focusing on the procedure (or story) - not outcome:
Do not ask for the outcome. You should ask step-by-step procedure or a
story, so that you can capture context/background of the issue.
4 Focusing on problems first - not features:
Try to avoid talking about your product. Focus on issues the customer is
suffering from or struggling with

Taboo Question
Why don’t you do XXX in
order to solve [Issue] ?

1 How do you conduct current [issue or operation]
When, what purpose, where, with whom and what kind of tools do you use?
Could you give me a walk-thru of the [issue or operation]?
If possible, could you show me a walk-thru?
2 Since when have you been engaged in [issue or operation]?
3 When you do [issue or operation], are there any issues,
or bottle necks or inefficient things?
4 Is there your own way of doing [issue or operation]?
5 Who are the stakeholders involving in while you are doing [issue or operation]?
6 Why do you feel pain when you are doing [issue or operation]?
7 How do you complete [issue or operation] now?
If you have tools, application or workaround, please let me know.
8 Can you describe the step-by-step procedure of [issue or operation]?
9 How much time/money does it cost? What is the most inconvenient part?
Question list to ask in a problem Interview.
“Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customer will Buy”

*Customer will be more open in the interview
when he/she realizes the interviewer certainly
recognizes his/her words
Repeat.
Confirm by repeating just as he/she said
Summarize.
Confirm by summarizing the content of the dialogue
Paraphrase.
Confirm by paraphrasing what he/she said to your own words
Confirm what he/she said

The role of interviewer is not to make questions
It is to find questions for customer by
listening to him/her

Ask for teaching
Ask about every
detail of it
Confirmation
Find questions in
the dialogue
Ask about every
detail of it
Ask about every
detail of it
Ask about every
detail of it
Find questions in
the dialogue
Find questions in
the dialogue
Find questions in
the dialogue
Interview flow

Principle ④
Observe the body language of customer
(interviewee).

Potential customer behavioral pattern.
・Asks many questions and shows passion for solving issues.
・Leans forward and energetic in his/her speaking (his/her body
language will tell).
・Shows the attitude in which he/she may pay money for
solving the issues.
Less potential customer behavioral pattern.
・Has no attention
・Tends to talk about unrelated things while discussing
Shows negative body language
*Talking with such customers is a waste of time that you
may as well finish the interview sooner.

Founder himself/herself conducts the
customer interview.
Principle ⑤

The prerequisite to creating good
products is that the founder creating
the product/service should see from the
customer's
viewpoint and deeply understand their
pains and needs.

Get to know the real.
Reach strategical decisions
based on data obtained from
actual customers.

Brian Chesky, Founder of AirBnB
visited local New York after
launching and talked with housing
owners one by one.

While conversing withcustomers, Brian
Chesky found high quality photos increase
conversion rates rapidly.

Brian Chesky, the founder of Airbnb, went to New York.
He became a photographer and supported homeowners by taking nice room
photos. Consequently, the weekly revenue doubled
Started using
professional
photographer

Principle ⑥
Conduct a coherent analysis
of the real intention of the customer
being interviewed.

Customers’ viewpoint itself is superficial
or just an amateur analysis in many
cases
Only Listening to
Customers is Worthless

By using the KJ method,
you can organize the interview contents
into a logical structure.

Procedure of the KJ Method
①Collect
interview data
② Categorize
the data
into small units
③ Organize
these units
into groups
④ For each group,
add an appropriate
label
⑤ Put into
logical structure
so that you can
explain logically
⑥ Specify what
the true cause of
the issue is

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Collect data and categorize data
into small units.
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Put these units
into small groups
and create a label for each.
Current learning method
Unsatisfied with
current way
Ideal method
Issue of content Issue of deliverable
Issue of learning method Low retention
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Gap
Organize them logically.
Current learning method
Unsatisfied with
current way
Ideal
method
Issue of content Issue of deliverable
Issue of learning method Low retention
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Team
Repeat until your team is fully convinced.

1 Analyze in a bottom-up way.
Don't fix categories at first. Don't categorize cards based on assumption.
2 Do not be mistaken by words.
For instance, if there is a card with "children on the waiting
list", written on it, you shouldn't simply put it on a bunch of cards.
3 Analyze all the cards.
We can't say it's been analyzed well if there are still
uncategorized cards. Every card must be put into any category
Points in the KJ Method

Qualification Question:
The interviewee was qualified as an evangelist, the person recognizes the issue and seeks
solutions proactively or has workaround solutions now.
・Did the interviewee tell you the truth?
・Did you interview enough people?
Existential Question:
・Did you confirm that the customer has an issue that you proposed?
・How severe is the issue?
・How often does the issue occur?
・Did customer show strong emotion to the issue?
・Can the issue be solved?
・Does customer believe the issue should be solved?
・Was there any constraint by which the customer cannot solve the issue?
Alternative Question:
・Does customer have an alternative solution or
make an investment in order to solve the issue?
・How much was pain there for using the alternative?
Problem Interview Checkpoints

Discontentment of customers is just
superficial in many cases
(Customers won’t verbalize it generally).
Dig out the true discontentment and
complex/inferiority behind it.

”Poor family communication”
“have less time to communicate” is a
superficial discontentment
What is the complex or inferiority of the
customer behind it?
When talking with another parent, the customer could hardly
talk about family and felt inferiority
Real intention
Superficial
reason

Behavior
True intention
What is the
true intention of
the customer
enforced to do
the behavior
True
intention
in the
depth
What is the true
intention not
recognized by
even the customer
on his/her own
Analyze
to dig out

Get insight. Go through the customer interviews
on the Javelin board.

Get interviews with 10 customers
and write them down to see if the
prerequisites of the issue are right

Realizing that hypothesis is unproven
(hypothesis is proved
it’s not always right) is
important to learn

Conduct brainstorming again learning a lesson
from the result. Find new customers,
issues, solutions if needed.

Verify the most uncertain
prerequisite. Going through
verification 5 to 6 times will give you a
good analysis.

Frustration
accumlates for
bad wifi
connectivity
during transit

Get at Least 5 Interviews
(Principle of “10 men, 3 minds”)

5 interviews might give you a clear mind for finding problems
８０％
５
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/

The more interviews you have,
the clearer the persona becomes.
Then brush up the persona and
customer story.

Persona ver1 Persona ver2 Persona ver3 Persona ver4
Customer story ver1 Customer story ver2 Customer story ver3 Customer story ver4
Brush up the issue quality through customer interviews
Javelin Board Javelin Board Javelin Board Javelin Board
Customer interview
X Interview analysis
Customer interview
Customer interview

Persona ver1 Persona ver2 Persona ver3 Persona ver4
Customer story ver1 Customer story ver2 Customer story ver3 Customer story ver4
Brush up the issue quality through customer interviews
Javelin Board Javelin Board Javelin Board Javelin Board
Customer interview
Customer interview
Customer interview
Deeper understanding
of customers and problems
customers have results in
higher quality issue setting

“The deeper you understand
customers, the more your product
raises the quality”
Eric Ries
”The Lean Startup”

①
②
High quality
idea
Low quality
idea
Quality of issue
Quality of
solution
High
HighLow
Low
The focus of Customer-
Problem-Fit is to make
the issue quality higher

X
Focus on whether the customers
have a “painful issue”

Ending of Customer-problem-
fit
・Analyzed the prerequisite proving the
existence of the issue and verified the issue
do exist?
・Clarified enough information of the
imagined customers having issues? ( persona,
customer story )

The organization of early start-up is
quite unstable.
Starting a team without a firm
representative, the team is to be
self-organizing.

Viewpoint from
finance
Viewpoint from
customers
Viewpoint from
operations
Viewpoint
from HR
Ideation
Customer/
Problem fit
Problem/
solution fit
Product/
market fit
Growth
Ideation/
Brush up the
hypothesis
Side project to
examine its
profitability
Verbalize
quality issue
・Investigate
issues
（Interview）
・Examine User
Story
Founder
Problem
Fit
・Unit economics
(LTV>CPA)
・Burn rate
Create the
prototype
(MVP)
Build a Co-
founders
team
カスタマーの課題を
解決する
ソリューションの
仮説を作れたか
・AARRR
（Focus on
Retention
Activation）
・Churn-rate
・AARRR
( Add Virality,
Acquisition as well)
・Run the community
・Define royal
customers with
NPS(CS) measurement
・MoM growth
(MRR)
・Break-even-
point
・Runway
・Customer
Development
・Build MVP with
Build-measure-
Learn
・Pivot
・Standarize operation
・Set up the system
where developing royal
customers
・UX improvement
・Growth hack
・Operation
specializing
・Hiring/Retention
・Data-driven/Agile
team
・Training
・Learning driven
team
・Management
team forming
・Burn rate
・Stock divide
Build
hypothesis
of customer
issue
Pre-seed round
Seed round
Series A
Examine if the
solution
hypothesis solves
the customer
issue
Team is still unstable

専門性特化型
エンジニア
技術志向エンジニア
P/S
Fit
Fixing Co-
founder
members
Experiment/Bu
ild MVP
Pivot
Build products
Analytics
Management
Create
Ideation/
Plan A
C/P
Fit
Filtering
Co-founder
members
Ideation
P/M
Fit
Team up
(10〜 members）
Growth
Co-founder
members +α
３-10 member
s
s
Start-up team in each stage
Start as a a
side project
UX
Design
Vision Selling
Pre-seed round
Seed round
Series ACopyright 2017 Masayuki Tadokoro All rights reserved
Growth
The focus is to
make Plan A and find
issues

2/3 founders must have the
issue targeting him/herself.

Founder-issue
doesn’t fit.
Analyze it with
other members
.
Ex-coworker
Founder
candidate
Ex-coworker
Founder
candidate
Ex-coworker
Founder
candidate
Ex-coworker
Founder
candidate

Ask yourself,
“what solution for my
problem would I want if
somebody in the world has
it?”
通年

Why AirBNB succeeds?

Brian Chesky, founder of Airbnb,
started the service
to solve his own problem.
He was not able to pay rent while he
had one empty room available in his
apartment.
* He only had 1000 USD in his bank account, though
the rent of his apartment was 1,500 USD

The best issues you should take on
are something you are personally
struggling with
Posted available room info to
his blog*
The very first version of Airbnb

Your
Issue
Easy to sympathize
Convey a strong
message
The degree of pain of the
issue can be exaggerated
–
You need to an objective
view
Issue of
your close friend
or family
Easy to know the
nuance and sentiment
of the issues
The perspective can be biased
- you need an objective view
Issue of
someone you know
The degree of pain tends
to be superficial -
You need to dig out the
root of the pain
Who is the owner of the issue?
Advantage
Dis-
advantage
Who’s
issue?
Can have objective
view that keeps bias
away
Is it solving the
issue targeting
people,
including you?

Terms of a Good Founder
・ wants to solve issues targeting people including
“him/her self”
・ has paranoia like characteristic
・has a clear image of an ideal UX that he/she wants to build
・(Especially in B2B cases）has strong relationships
with customers
・has product management experience
・has flexibility

Founder should have a paranoia like
fetish where he/she’d rather provide a
best than good.

"1,000 customers behave in 1,000
ways. Needless to say, it is hard to
satisfy the 1000 people. I'd love to try it
though.”
Akimitsu Sano
CEO/founder of Cookpad

Startup Science 2017 ③

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