CHAPTER 5Gaining ShareSatisfy Your Customers’ Cravings

THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT HUNGER for a start-up than the one for getting and keeping customers. Because potential customers are reluctant to risk doing business with an unproven company, it’s a challenge for start-ups to attract and keep those deeply needed customers.

Start-ups must find a problem to which customers crave a solution. More specifically, a start-up’s ability to feed its profit-hungry coffers depends on satisfying customer cravings for a solution to a painful unmet need. Unfortunately for their cash flows, many start-ups I interviewed have found that not only do customers want those problems solved, they want these valuable solutions at no charge; I call this a “quantum value ...

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