Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them well
Customer Discovery using Forums, Blogs, Social Media & Trade Shows
1. Customer Discovery using Blogs,
Forums, Social Media & Trade Shows
Mike Fisher
Co-Founder / CEO
storymixmedia.com
2. Background (how to run a startup un-lean)
2007 - Launched Part time, version 1.0
Spoke to Family & Friends prior to launch
2008 - Started Re-design
Based on prior customers, internal insights
2009 - Begin Development of version 2.0
New products, new website, new ordering system
2009 (Aug) - Discover Customer Development / Lean Startup
Begin the process anew
3. Customer Development / Lean Startup
Steve Blank: the process startups
use to quickly iterate and test each
element of their business model.
Customer Discovery: testing your
hypotheses.
Eric Reis: maximize validated
learning for the least amount of effort.
5. Mindset for Discovery
Whom - identify ideal customers
Learning - what can I learn about their needs?
Altruism - how can I help (even if my product doesn’t)?
Listen - what are their problems? (people like to talk about
themselves)
Develop relationships - get outside the building
No easy / short-cut method - each customer is only one data
point and can only provide anecdotal evidence
6. Forums
Top Level Method to Learn About Customers
Establish Credibility First
Send Private Messages to speak offline
7. Blog
Must be of Real Value to Customers
Active and Consistent Schedule of Posts - Blank vs. Reis
Provide Links within Posts to Social Media Customer ‘Friends’
Develop an Active Comments / Feedback community
8. Social Media
Find relevant groups where your customers are
LinkedIn
Join groups where your customers exist
Be active, look to help others
Facebook
Friend potential customers
Use groups to find those with common interest / problem
9. Social Media (cont’d)
Twitter
hashtags & search
don’t wildly build follower list
link to blog posts
10. Trade Shows (as spectator)
Determine Hidden Barriers to Entry
Clarify links between Vendor / Competitor / Customer
Discover Unknown Loyalties
See Competitors Pitch Products and Customer Reactions
Great Opportunities to Speak with Customer’s Actively Searching
for Solutions
11. What’s Next
Plan Whom to Contact
What do you want to Learn?
Schedule Appointments
Organize / Structure What You’ve Learned
Iterate / Pivot Product(s)
Follow-up to Test Product Hypotheses
Notas do Editor
- Focus is Customer Discovery
- How to find customers to test ‘problem’ hypothesis
- People look to short cut the work, might not be possible
- These may be valuable, but need to find people with a problem and are actively trying to solve it
- Can quickly read / gather information
- Post / answer topics you have some expertise
- Ask questions to learn (but do searches first to see if already been answered)
- No link to your site in your signature
- Don’t send out survey at first (or ever)
- Use WordPress
- Most important way to find customers during Discovery
- Everybody wants in-bound links to their blog or site
- Can start prior to a landing page or product site, build credibility
- Great for in-bound links to your site
- Don’t no-follow your links, people will figure it out
- Make sure your comments section is moderated - Russian spammers
LinkedIn
- SEO, in-bound links
- Looking for input to your blog, willing to give links; don’t give link to your blog
- Provides reason to setup phone call
Facebook
- Try to friend Linkedin contacts
- Use to establish personal dialogs, stay fresh in minds
- Can be a type of CRM
- Make sure your customers are in their own Friends list - separate from the rest of your Facebook world
- Use search.twitter to see what people are talking about before tweeting
- Fine tune for relevant followers
- Use bit.ly
- Don’t use auto follower programs
- Make sure to interact with your followers
- Spamming is dangerous
- Can be the best and quickest way to find real customers
- Unique environment
- Seems like a lot of work prior to talking to customers
- Remember, creating a product nobody wants is a real waste of time
- Taking the time upfront will result in much more / better learning
- Creating relationships will improve chance to continue conversations into Validation and Creation
