CHAPTER 12Customer Validation, Phase Four: The Toughest Question of All: Pivot or Proceed?
THIS IS THE MOST CRITICAL, MOST GUT-WRENCHING phase of customer validation: honestly determining whether there’s a scalable, profitable business model ahead. Is the company ready to go forward to the customer creation step, when millions of dollars are often spent to fuel rapid customer growth? This step literally “calls the question” about the company’s future directions. It’s time to study all the test results, all the customer learning and all the insights you’ve had from the facts you’ve gathered. Its time to see if the company is ready to start spending money to scale, and that the result will be a great, profitable company.
There are three steps to answering the crucial “pivot or proceed” question:
- Assemble and review all key discovery and validation findings
- Review the business model hypotheses and their interactions with one another
- Focus on the “metrics that matter” in the financial model
Pivot or Proceed: Assemble Data Findings
By this point, the team has assembled a massive amount of hard data: industry research, customer segments, customer feedback, marketing program results, channel and cost input and much more. The data needs to be verified, with any gaps, discrepancies, ...
Get The Startup Owner's Manual now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
