The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It's understanding who to listen to and why.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Part of Customer Development is understanding which customers make sense for your business.
For Customer Development to succeed, everyone on the team - from investor or parent company to engineers, marketers and founders - needs to understand and agree that the Customer Development process is different to its core.
Great entrepreneurs are often great listeners and they can spot patterns and pick up on small details in customer stories.
Entrepreneurs always begin the journey believing that they have the next big idea. They dream of the fame and fortune that awaits them if only they had the funding to pursue it. But the reality is that as the product is built and shared with customers, flaws in their concept are discovered that - if not overcome - will kill the business.
The goal of listening to customers is not to please every one of them. It's to figure out which customer segments serve your needs - both short and long term.
Learning how to interact with customers is something that anyone starting any business must master. It's an amazing opportunity to be able to learn the ropes at an established company and then employ your expertise at your own company.
The purpose of a business is to create customers.
The purpose of a business is to create a customer.
It is customers that decide if we succeed.
We listen to the entrepreneur. We try to have a fine tuning fork to understand what they are saying and whether that makes sense and know it when we see it. We don't try to do too much predicting.