Customer Development

Startups, Business Models, Metrics, Product Development. http://www.custdev.net

[incidentalcomics]

Inspiration Falls

Posters of this comic (and many others) are available at the Incidental Comics shop.

[raywu]

This is a talk that I gave in Bangkok this week at Thumbs Up’s Start It Up, Power It Up #4

Lean Startup Customer Development Level: Tomb Raider

At JFDI.Asia, we help over 60% of our teams raise on average 500,000 dollars, including a Thai startup you may know, ShopSpot. ...

[davidhauser]

Hindsight is 20/20. When you look back on any project or endeavor, you get a better idea of what was important and what wasn’t.

The same is true with startups. After working on a business for a year or two or more, you have a better idea about what was worth worrying about and what wasn’t as big…

[custdev]

(via A new (old?) model for understanding the stages of a startup – The Startup Toolkit Blog)

[custdev]

KISSinsights Customer Development Tactics from Cindy Alvarez

[custdev]

"Every successful startup goes through four phases in the eyes of competitors. First, they ignore you, because you're tiny and irrelevant. Then they ridicule you, because you're making them nervous. Then they freak out and try to kill you. Then, eventually, they try to buy you." - Henry Blodget, CEO of Business Insider

The Truest Startup Advice You'll Ever Read, From Founders Who Have Actually Been There - Business Insider

[custdev]

Steve Jobs Insult Response (by Mike Cane)

[custdev]

(via GrowHack » Noah Kagan’s 6 Steps to a Customer Lovegasm)

[custdev]

For many companies, technology serves as what Warren Buffett calls a moat. The piece that can’t be copied. As DHH pointed out, this is where products like Groupon struggle, their technology isn’t a moat. If the technology isn’t a moat, then the community must be. Communities are very hard to copy. By definition, Groupon’s community will go anywhere the cheap deals are, and aren’t many positive network effects at play. For services like Heroku, YouTube, Google, and Amazon, their moat has evolved to the point where they’re close to untouchable. It’s not easy to build what they’ve already built. And while you’re busy trying to get there, they’re busy adding crocodiles and piranhas. Going head to head with these businesses is a very risky idea for a start-up. It sounds stupid to say it, but YouTube didn’t have to compete with a YouTube. There was no Heroku before Heroku. Similarly, you should find an area where you can attack either through low-end or new-market disruption, rather than stepping into the ring with a giant who made up the rules.

Asking Questions beats Giving Advice | The Intercom Blog

[custdev]

Bounce Lean Canvas Review w- Riyaz & Justin - Customer Development Labs (by Justin Wilcox)

[custdev]

 Lean Sales and Marketing Infographic :: Lean Sales and Marketing thru Service Design Thinking

[custdev]

The Product Canvas displays the key pieces of information necessary to create a new product. As its name suggests, it intends to paint a holistic picture of the product.

The biggest challenge when developing a new product is to deal with uncertainty and lack of knowledge. We may not know, for instance, if there is enough demand for the product or which needs should be addressed. The Product Canvas is therefore designed as a learning tool: to sketch our initial ideas, to get enough stories ready for implementation, and to adapt and refine the content based on the insights gained. The following picture illustrates this cycle.

[custdev]

+ Follow, slideshare.net

One of the best presentations on #custdev #leanstartup and #agile: Think Like an Agilist by @zachnies http://flpbd.it/aqJ9T

[custdev]

Designing for Viral Distribution intercom.io

At some point every prod­uct owner pon­ders how to make it go viral, as a thought exper­i­ment if noth­ing more.

The oppor­tu­ni­ties to cre­ate truly viral prod­ucts are very lim­it­ed, but by under­stand­ing the tech­niques involved, yo…

Defin­ing Your Shar­ing Mech­a­nism Typ­i­cal­ly B2B SaaS prod­ucts can’t do this well, but if your prod­uct has a con­sumer fac­ing side then you can ben­e­fit from social shar­ing. There’s just two tasks you need to do: 1. Decide what’s share­able Iden­ti­fy every sin­gle mean­ing­ful share­able event that you have in your prod­uct. Likes, favourites, lis­tens, posts, com­ments, views, con­nec­tions—all of them. The more you have, the greater the effect. For exam­ple, Spo­ti­fy shares every­thing from song lis­tens, favourites, and sub­scrip­tions, all the way through to playlist cre­ations. This is also all done pas­sive­ly; the user never clicks “Share”, it just hap­pens. 2. Share across plat­forms To max­i­mize your reach you have to make sure that net­work effects spread effec­tive­ly across a user­base. In short: don’t send Android users to the app store. It has to work like this: Des plays a song on his desk­top. His friend notices it in her news­feed on Face­book for Android. She clicks Spo­ti­fy and is taken to Google play, where she down­loads the app. Any­thing other than this leaves money on the table.

[custdev]

7 Reasons Most People Should Build Lifestyle Businesses, Not Startups http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/09/21/7-reasons-most-people-should-build-lifestyle-businesses-not-startups/

[custdev]

What's in the book? A step-by-step guide to successful startup marketing. Customer Development Advice Metrics-Driven Marketing Tips A Look at Freemium and Other Business Models How to Find Great Marketers ...And more!

http://www.hyperink.com/Lean-Startup-Marketing-Agile-Product-Development-Business-Model-Design-Web-Analytics-And-Other-Keys-To-Rapid-Growth-b245A849480

[custdev]

When people buy products and services they avoid the extremes (the cheapest and most expensive) and settle for the middle ground.

http://socialtriggers.com/dumb-pricing-mistake/