The Future Customer is Always Right

I would say my journey with my startup, Ephemeral, was an incredibly lucky one. Ephemeral was able to bounce back even in the toughest of times when the team was about to pack it up and call it quits. Ephemeral is still alive but other startups aren’t as lucky. During my time there, I saw startups fail left and right due to reasons such as excessive competition, lack of funding, and team conflicts. It’s nothing new. In fact, 9 out of 10 startups are going to fail, according to statistics.

One of the biggest reasons is making a product no one wants. It is ignorant to think that people will buy or use your product once you’ve built it if you have no data to back it up. This can be determined through customer discovery. Customer discovery is the process of talking to your potential customers, learning about them, and validating/invalidating your assumptions and hypotheses. Going through this process can lead to additional features or a pivot in the product to address concerns or problems you didn’t acknowledge before.

Talking to customers may be second nature to some but for others, like me, it was a challenge. I found it nerve-racking to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger but I couldn’t leave all the work to my co-founders.

“If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” — Mary Engelbreit

Here are five tips or mindsets I used when I did customer discovery.

They’re Strangers

I’m sure that everyone’s parents have told them to never talk to strangers. However, in our case, there is a purpose that must be fulfilled. In addition, because they’re strangers, you probably won’t ever talk to them ever again. In the case that you do, they won’t be strangers anymore and you’ll be less worried about it.

Prepare & Practice

Before talking to potential customers, come up with a list of key questions you need answers to. This ensures that you know what you want out of the conversation or interview. However, this list is not a script. Hence, practice interviewing a friend, family member, or someone you met recently before doing it for real with strangers.

Tag Team

If you’re still feeling uncomfortable, partner up with someone on your team or a friend if you’re the sole founder. You can take turns being the interviewer or the note taker. Also, there’s someone with you for support and encouragement when you need it.

Be Wanted

Instead of you approaching strangers, have the strangers approach you. For example, my team and I offered free lemonade to anyone who could give us a 5 minute interview on a hot day in the park. In this case, we provided an incentive, which caused strangers to WANT to talk to us. It was a success and saved us valuable time.

It’s Not Only About You

It may be hard to approach strangers even after several times but keep in mind that you’re doing this for the future of your company, team, and yourself. This should be your mindset every day in your startup journey, no matter who you talk to or what you do.

Although, startups fail a lot, it shouldn’t prevent you or any bootcamp graduate from starting or joining one if you’re really passionate about solving a particular problem and/or trying to create something truly original that isn’t out in the market. Just remember to talk to your customers before building out your product and to clear any assumptions!