How to speed up Customer Discovery at your Startup (Part 1/2).
This is the story of how much you can learn when hanging out with a real and experienced Entrepreneur.
This article mentions (Part 1) because I believe this great story cannot be told in just a one-long post. I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did and still am!
It’s not hard. It’s even harder.
Some people would say that meeting new people is hard.
Some other people would say that meeting and engaging with potential customers is actually harder, and scary. One thought that automatically comes to mind and I’ve heard is:
“How about if they don’t like or resonate with my value proposition?”
I would say that meeting Founders is even harder.
Especially if you don’t have too many connections out there and you were living in the bubble of the corporate world for years believing you knew everybody and you could access and connect to anybody.
While still being in corporate, I thought I would just leave and the connections I’ve made during that time was going to be more than enough to embark on my next journey…
WRONG! Think again, Luis.
A month ago, we kicked off our process of Customer Development at a-change and focused on meeting Startup Founders, as part of our Customer Discovery, to test reactions on our business model and gain insights from their feedback (and sometimes get additional ideas, for free! :D ).
We started with this simple message on LinkedIn:
We are ready for Discovery Research and we would love to talk to you, Startup Founder.
Are you a Founder or you work at a startup in Berlin?
Do you have 30 minutes to spare to talk to us? Please comment here below.
We’re not selling anything. We want to talk to you and share our idea to help you and your team get better at succeeding.
Do you know anyone who would be interested on this?
Please tag her/him below! 😊
Thanks so much LinkedIn network! 😊
Customer Development Team.
https://joinachange.com/
Besides that, I sent 30+ emails and messages to my ex colleagues, mentors, founders and people in my first degree of network. I followed the “start with the people that you know” tactic for overcoming the initial mental blocks and fears when you starting you venture.
What was the result of these attempts?
Not so encouraging.
Many Startup Gurus state that the fastest way to learn is to talk to customers. Not releasing code, or collecting analytics, but talking to people. This means, using customer interviews as a learning tool and conduct good interviews. I couldn’t agree more to this, but…
What happens when you don’t know where to start?
What happens when you don’t know the best way to reach this people?
What happens when people turn you down because your message is “too general”, “too fluffy” or talking to you doesn’t fulfill their “current priorities”?
What happens if you’re seen to salesy or as a competitor?
What happens? What happens? Analysis paralysis……..
You’re plain stuck in your Customer Discovery efforts.
Well, all of the above statements are fair. However, as an Entrepreneur, your only desire and motivation is to keep going, find creative ways to test your business assumptions and ultimately what you do, as an Entrepreneur, is making tactical moves and iteration until you get what you need… Until you get what you want.
So how, my dear Entrepreneur, are you going to overcome this?
Meet Klaus. Klaus is changing the world.
There’s something very true from Entrepreneurs that reinforces my understanding about their traits and it aligns with what many people believe: they are from a different breed. One of the main motivations, and sometimes the only one, is that they start businesses to change the world, in the case of Klaus, the fashion world.
But how is Klaus helping us speed our learning in Customer Discovery?
How does this guy come into the play of a-change?
I explain now:
- LinkedIn didn’t work well.
- Email did slightly better but not enough.
- So, what worked for us to connect to and with Startup Founders?
In this case, with Klaus?
One thing: a real story on Medium.
Yes, I’m talking about this platform from where you’re reading right now.
Let’s rewind almost two months ago, 21 of March 2019, the moment I decided to write about my decision to start a-change after a transformational experience in my last Startup Mentoring Program. I decided to face my fears, and take the first steps to my genuine desire to pursue my dreams.
But again, what does this have to do with Klaus?
- I shared my story.
- And he was there.
- At the right moment.
- He read it.
- He connected with my story and I connected with his.
- We decided to talk about our vision and dreams and felt inspired.
Little parenthesis here.
Meet one of his brands: VRESH.
Ok. I know there is a plenty of controversy around the fashion industry being known as one of the most polluting industries in the world. Working almost three years in an online fashion platform, I was always in the middle point of building new products supporting this industry but also supporting initiatives that are changing the game, like VRESH.
Klaus new products draw my attention.
Why? Just one simple reason: for every time they produce a T-Shirt, 2700 liters of water are saved. Since 2012 they’ve been working on fairmade and sustainable clothing developing a circular economy where we only use textile waste to create new products.
I believe in these stories; I believe in these Entrepreneurs.
It’s our main mission at a-change to discover and help them build innovative companies driven by purpose and building lovable products.
End of parenthesis.
Come to Berlin.
And stay at my place, I said. This is where our journey starts.
A journey where I stepped on the gas of Customer Discovery and when from 75% to 100% time invested talking to a Founder, Klaus.
Five days, learning from his success, failures, observing his daily habits, patterns and how he manages his company, while being in Berlin. It was a face-to-face, five days discovery research with an experienced Founder who helped us iterate quicker and validate our business model assumptions.
This is a 2-part story that I would like to share with you.
So, what is the first learning of how to speed up your learning process?
Blog about your journey.
This is the best until that have worked for me. No email, no LinkedIn message would have made the job than telling my own real and authentic story back on March 21st.
Since then, I’ve been encouraging the people around me (especially Founders) to tell their stories. It’s so exciting and inspiring to hear in so many levels what fulfills them, their struggles, their pains, their problems and the so many ways they can be solved; sometimes just with a slight advise.
I believe the following post would give you my views on how true business relationships are built and how they should take place every single time. Idealistically as it could sound and might be perceived in this post, I have a strong inclination that these stories can be multiplied with thousands of Founders and business partners, all around the world.
I think that you, yes you reading, should consider tell me your story. I’m pretty sure you have a lot to tell. How about starting down in the comments? :)
Thanks for reading! :)
Luis.
Founder @ a-change
