The Agile Startup: Quick and Dirty Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Create Massive Value

There’s only one thing you need to know to build a successful company—you must create massive value for your customers. Customers will trade their hard-earned cash for one thing only—value. Therefore, you must have a deep understanding of what your customers need and how to help them get what they want. Formally known as the value proposition, there are three main components to value: the benefits gained from using your product, the target market, and the price relative to competitors or substitutes.

Realize that your value proposition is specific to each market segment. Your target market and follow-on markets likely have different value preferences, and you have to cater to each. The benefit that gets one customer to buy might create ambivalence in another.

Get to the bottom of all three aspects of your value proposition by asking a lot of questions and listening carefully. Vary your messaging and see what gets customers excited. Despite the formal definition, this isn’t academic—what you understand to be your value proposition will become the foundation for sales and marketing efforts down the road. Nail all three and customers will beat a path to your door.

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