Resources for conducting customer discovery research

One of the core objectives of this course is to teach you that entrepreneurship, if practiced intelligently, is not very risky. If you are asking yourself how that can be, well, it is one of the great myths related to entrepreneurship. Do businesses fail? of course, in fact most new businesses fail. Do some entrepreneurs take reckless risks? Of course, they do. By taking this course, you will realize that the secret to successful entrepreneurship is to never start a business that is doomed to fail. Of course, this sounds silly, and logical. Everyone knows that you should never start a business that is doomed to fail, but we do it every day.
The reason is that most aspiring entrepreneurs never take the time to discover if the problem they are trying to solve is actually a problem. So, they end up THINKING their idea is great, invest money and hard work into the idea, only to discover later that nobody else agrees. Below is my six step process to validating a business idea. In order to answer the questions presented below, we will use tools like the business model canvas, and we will validate the assumptions we have about our business through a process referred to as customer development and discovery.

Can you affirmatively answer these questions, and provide evidence to support your answers?

1. What is the problem I am trying to solve?

2. Do other people agree with me that this is indeed a problem?

3. How painful of a problem is it for people? In other words, is the "pain point" of this problem so acute (intense) for people that they would be willing to reach into their pockets and pay for a solution. Or, is the problem I have identified really just an inconvenience and/or annoyance. It turns our that people generally are not willing to pay for a solution to an inconvenience.

4. Are the people that expressed that the problem you have identified is painful (intense), are they willing to pay for a solution (a.k.a. medicine) for this problem.

5. If they are willing to pay, are they willing to pay YOU for YOUR solution?

6. Can I build my solution a.k.a. product/service?

This course teaches you how to find out quickly the answers to these questions, and if you discover that the problem is real, but not severe enough that people are willing to pay for a solution, then you never go into business, and therefore never fail. If you discover that the problem is real, and the pain point is severe, but the customers are not willing to pay you for your proposed solution, then you either modify your solution, or never go into business and therefore never fail. if you discover that the problem is real, the pain is severe, the customer loves your solution, but you cannot build the solution for a host of reasons (too expensive, lack of knowledge etc. ), then you once again never launch the business, or try to develop an alternate solution that can be built.

Only after you have validated all of these elements do you pursue your business launch. This rigorous process is know as the "Lean Startup" methodology, which you will learn about this semester.

Below are several resources related to conducting customer discovery research that helps you to answer the questions posed above.

Video Resources:

How two plan for customer interviews. A 13 part video series moderated by Steve Blank about how to plane, carry out, and process findings related to customer discovery research.

The Phases of Customer Discovery Links to an external site.