Lean Customer Development

Chapter 3. Who Should I Be Talking To?

We went to Sonoma, the center of highbrow culinary thinking, and went to the Wine Auction. We bought a booth and had a KRAVE jerky tent next to the high-end wineries. There was definite shock factor! But people were intrigued and came to talk to us.

—Jon Sebastiani, CEO of KRAVE

Everyone wants to feel connected. When people know that they’re actually helping to grow a product, that we want their personal experience to be as great as possible, it gets them really excited.

—Dan Levine, CTO of StyleSeat

There are probably two things concerning you right now: that you have no idea how to find the right customers to talk to, and that they wouldn’t spend their time talking to you even if you could find them. If you have a product and existing customers, you may still find it surprisingly hard to get in direct contact with them. If you don’t have a product yet, why would someone want to spend time talking to you about a product that doesn’t even exist yet?

This chapter will tackle both of those fears head-on. You’re going to learn how to use personal connections, social media, websites, and physical places to find the people who will benefit from the product you’re trying to build. I’ll also discuss the factors that motivate people to share and collaborate. By understanding some basic social psychology, you’ll be better able to convince people to help you and make them feel happier for having done so. We’ll cover:

• The importance of “earlyvangelists”

• Details ...