A case study of OUYA and the entrepreneurs’ trap

The truth is that most startups fail. But this statistic would be much lower if founders simply embarked on the simple, but not easy, process of Customer Development. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs neglect to do this before launching their business — mostly because it’s hard and not nearly as fun as building your product or service. But also because most people really don’t even know how to do it.

But how do you extract the real need from potential customers so you

We’ve all heard stories of startups who had rocket-powered growth and an equally fast crash and burn. Companies like Ouya, YikYak, and Jawbone raised tons of money, launched a product, invested millions in sales and marketing only to come crashing down soon after they ran out of money.

In simple terms, they never did the work required to achieve product-market fit.

This customer development tip looks at one of these companies, OUYA, and figure out why they failed.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.

How to extract real pain points from customers

Interviewing potential customers is the only way to know if your business idea is going to work. It’s an essential process to be done BEFORE you launch your product or service.

But how do you extract the real need from potential customers so you can validate a problem and confirm you are solving is the right one. Use customer development to extract real pain points from customers.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.

The basic building block of starting a business.

The most essential aspect of business building is solving a significant problem or need for a specific segment of customers. The most effective way to identify a problem worth solving is to start with a problem hypothesis.

This is a process that informs your entire customer development process by helping you frame who you think the customer is, what problem they have, and what benefit they get after solving it.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.

Using customer development to maximize startup success.

Finding product-market fit is the holy grail for any startup. And not finding it is why so many startups fail. Achieving this goal can only be accomplished by applying the customer development framework before you begin building your product or service.

In order to find product-market fit, you must identify a significant customer pain.

Product-market fit means you have found a viable solution to a real customer problem at an acceptable price point. And while this is very difficult to achieve, every single successful company from McDonald’s to Facebook has found it. By applying the customer development framework to your startup, you are more likely to achieve product-market fit before you run out of money and resources.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.

How to start a business that works & solves essential problems

Customer Development is the single most important skill entrepreneurs need to be successful. Whether launching a startup for the first time. Or you’ve tried and failed before. Or you have an existing business is building out a new product — customer development is the critical activity you cannot skip.

The principles were invented by Steve Blank, the father of the lean startup movement. They’re tested, proven, and used by successful entrepreneurs and product managers every day to identify business opportunities and validate ideas — before you launch them.

If you search for “customer development” on Google, you will find a ton of resources, and a lot of it is good. But after teaching this skill in person for nearly 10 years I’ve concluded that reading about customer development is not sufficient to put it into practice.

Get my entire 57 lecture course and learn to take action, start doing customer development and build a business that lasts. Available on Udemy for only $29.99.