{"id":54,"date":"2021-01-17T08:34:05","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T08:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bak.me\/blog\/?p=54"},"modified":"2021-01-23T01:19:23","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T01:19:23","slug":"customer-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bak.me\/blog\/customer-development\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Customer Development?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you search for \u201ccustomer development\u201d 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\u2019ve concluded that reading about customer development is not sufficient to put it into practice. This course is about taking action and actually starting customer development today.

Put simply, the term customer development<\/strong><\/em> means talking to potential customers of your business to learn whether or not a problem exists and if your solution might actually solve it for them. This must be done at the idea stage, not after building and launching your product or service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course this process can, and should, be used repeatedly over the lifespan of your business, but this initial effort will give you essential information around whether or not you should even embark on this business venture in the first place. And, it will often lead you to an even bigger problem\/solution than your original idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are four stages of customer development: Customer Discovery<\/span>, Customer Validation<\/span>, Customer Creation<\/span> and Company Building<\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Customer Discovery<\/strong> – This stage is about understanding who your customer is and what meaningful problems they have. This is largely done through primary and secondary research like surveys and customer interviews. You will almost certainly repeat this step several times in order to fully identify a customer segment with a problem worth solving.
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  2. Customer Validation<\/strong> – This is when you launch a product or service and customers begin paying for it. This confirms that you are solving a real problem at a price customers are willing to pay.
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  3. Customer Creation<\/strong> – Here is where you expand your reach through sales and marketing to build greater demand for your product or service.
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  4. Company Building<\/strong> – And finally you transform your organization from “startup” to “mature” business<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    If you are a startup or launching a new business, you really only need to worry about Customer Discovery and Customer Validation because once you have successfully iterated through these stages, you will either have found product market fit or you won’t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The work you do in these stages will:<\/p>\n\n\n\n