G E T Y O U R
CUSTOMER
T O D O T H E
INNOVATING
SCOTTEBALES.COM

Design is NOT everything. Consider products
in the market customers pay for which solve
STRONG problems but lack good design.
!
Customers will forgive you on bad design if
you are solving a strong enough problem.
!
- E R I C R I E S
There’s a difference between STRONG
problems and BIG problems. One is around
pain level and the other around market size.
- Steve Blank

OUR OBJECTIVES
accept fail =
lesson
understand the
journey
what is customer
development
develop
personas
designing
experiments
making
decisions

want to accelerate your innovation insights?
email me your challenge, for a chance to win a free consultation
Digital Coach
Digital Strategy
Product Ideation
Strategic Advisor
Capability Building
Corporate Innovation
scott@s3b.co
scottebales.com @scottebales

99% IS IT THE RIGHT IDEA?
FAIL OF VENTURES

SUCCESS RATE

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE IS YOUR
ABILITY TO BUILD RAPIDLY MEASURE, LEARN AND ADAPT
PIVOT
OR PERSEVERE

WHAT MOST
PEOPLE THINK
WHAT SUCCESSFUL
PEOPLE KNOW

YOUR S K I L L S
NON-EXISTE
NT
1 2 3 4 AVERA
GE 6 7 8 9
I ’ M A
ROCKS
TAR
BUSINESS MODELING
PERSONA DEVELOPMENT
CUSTOMER DISCOVERY &
DEVELOPMENT
MINIMUM VIABLE EXPERIMENTS
PRODUCT / MARKET FIT
P I VOT VS PERSEVERE
PITCHING

WHO ARE YOU?
WHAT ARE
...YOUR PASSIONS?
...YOUR EXPECTATIONS?

WHO ARE YOU?
A verb starting with the
same letter as your first
name
I am passionate about
solving...
What do I want to get out of
today?
Spontaneous Scott
Educating, growing and
mentoring tomorrow’s
entrepreneurs
Enable entrepreneurs to fail
fast, and succeed faster

THE BEST FIT FOR FOUNDERS…
IS PROBLEM FIT

Start here. Brainstorm with stickies, pull it over to the right to start your experiment. Experiments
Who is your customer? Time Limit: 5 Min People
Customer
Problem
Solution
Riskiest
Assumption
Success
Criterion
Result &
Decision
Learning
1 2 3 4 5
To form a Customer/Problem Hypothesis:
I believe my customer has a
problem achieving this goal.
To form your Assumptions:
0UVYKLYMVY̸hypothesis to be
true, assumption needs to
be true.
Determine how you will test it:
The least expensive way to
test my assumption is...
buying
Vespas on
Craigslist
People with
KPMÄJS[
commute
NYC
C U S T O M E R P R O B L E M
Relying on
products
that use
oil
Understanding
safety time
saving of
Vespa
People with
KPMÄJS[
commute
NYC
Vespa too
expensive
for identity
risk
Vespa One-
Pager +
Trial
Rent Vespa
Return It
If Not Fit
No friends
Vespa
Pay
$250/month
INTERVIEW:
8/10 don’t
have friend
with Vespa
SELL:
15 email
addresses
in 2 hours
Care about
environment
INTERVIEW:
5/20 buying
Vespa bc
environment
important
0/20
PIVOT!
CUSTOMER DISCOVERY
5/10
50+ in 2 hours
P I V PIVOT!
O T O PERSEVERE!
R P E R S E V E R E
- Skinny Tie!
- Buying for
lifestyle
- “I’m not a
scooter
person”
- Lifestyle is
a risk
- People typing
in ALL CAPS
- Jumping out
of seat to try
What is the problem? Phrase it from your customer’s perspective. Time Limit: 5 Min
+LÄUL[OLZVS[PVUVUS`HM[LY`VOH]L]HSPKH[LKHWYVISLT^VY[OZVS]PUNTime Limit: 5 Min
List the assumptions that must hold true, for your hypothesis to be true. Time Limit: 10 Min
Need help? Use these sentences to help construct your experiment.
To form a Problem/Solution Hypothesis:
I believe this solution will result
in XHU[PÄHISLV[JVTL.
To identify your Riskiest Assumption:
The assumption with the least
amount of data, and core to the
viability of my hypothesis is...
Determine what success looks like:
I will run experiment with # of
customers and expect a strong
signal from # of customers.
GET OUT OF THE BUILDING!
A S S U M P T I O N S
M V P
V A L I D A T E D L E A R N I N G
B R A I N S T O R M I N G
S O L U T I O N

BUSINESS DESIGN
CUSTOMER PROBLEM SOLUTION

SEARCH EXECUTE
CUSTOMER
DISCOVERY
CUSTOMER
VAL IDATION
CUSTOMER
CREATION
COMPANY
BUILDING

“Type a quote here.”
–JOHNNY APPLESEED
CTRL + C!
DON’T WRITE A SINGLE LINE OF CODE
UNTIL UNDERSTAND…

Malkovich Bias
THE TENDENCY TO BELIEVE THAT
EVERYONE USES TECHNOLOGY
THE SAME WAY YOU DO.
ANDRES GLUSMAN

customer development mantra
YOU ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER
!
ONLY THROUGH RESEARCH
CAN WE UNCOVER PEOPLE’S
PAINS, NEEDS, AND GOALS, I N
THEIR CONTEXT

customers have the answers
IF YOU DON’T TALK TO YOUR
CUSTOMERS, HOW WILL YOU
KNOW HOW TO TALK TO YOUR
CUSTOMERS?
- WILL EVANS

PERSONA
DEVELOPMENT
ASSUMPTION
EXPLORATION
LEARN REPEAT RISK TESTING

1PERSONA
DEVELOPMENT
CUSTOMER
fictional characters to represent
different user types in a targeted,
attitude and/or behaviour set to
drive empathy

Persona Development Facts
Factual information
about your target customer.
Pain
State the problem you believe
your target customers have,
that your solution solves for.
Goals
What goals are they trying to accomplish
through the behavior, that your solution will do better?
Behavior
Existing behavior they exhibit now,
because they don’t have your solution.
Greg
GET THE TEMPLATE
SCOTTEBALES.COM/PERSONAS

EXERCISE
PERSONA
WHAT ’ S T H E I R CONTEXT?
WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO
ACHIEVE?
HOW CAN YOU ADD VALUE?

WHAT customer CUSTOMER?
do I start with?
which 1 2 3 4
CUSTOMER

Persona Development Facts
Factual information
about your target customer.
Pain
State the problem you believe
your target customers have,
that your solution solves for.
Goals
What goals are they trying to accomplish
through the behavior, that your solution will do better?
37 years of age, married(7 years).
Two kids (3 5)
Employed by Coca-Cola to manage regional
marketing
Tech savvy, loves his Gadgets. Always keen
to learn more
Reads The Economist Online
Enjoys the outdoors with his kids
Regular traveller in the region, both work
and personal
Behavior
Existing behavior they exhibit now,
because they don’t have your solution.
Greg
Has been reading video blog tips in the hope of creating is own travel
video blog
Purchased a pirated copy of Final Cut Pro to explore, but quickly
purchased a license
Always has his video camera out when traveling, both on work travels
and personal travel
Purchased the domain www.gregsworld.com
Has tried Vimeo, Wordpress and TypePad in attempts to create a blog
Greg is a bit of a perfectionist, so he has tried multiple video blog
solutions
But hasn’t found any that allow him to express himself in the way he wants.
He finds each tool hard to earn, and really isn’t sure if he is getting the
best out of each tool
He has tried reading through forums, but finds it difficult reading a tutorial
and applying it to his material
!
Greg loves to travel, he loves to explore new places, culture, people
and food
Greg would love to share his experiences with friends, family and
colleagues
!
!

CUSTOMER PROBLEM (SOLUTION)
HYPOTHESIS
CUSTOMER PROBLEM SOLUTION
Who specifically
has this
problem?
How do you
intent to solve
this problem?
What problem
are you trying to
solve?

2ASSUMPTION
EXPLORATION
l i s t c o r e
ASSUMPTIONS
a b o u t t h e
CUSTOMER

does