Why founders do customer development wrong
When a product is at the idea stage, startup founders normally do custdev themselves. Sometimes they take it on at the prototype or MVP stages as well if they don’t have a product manager on the team. On the one hand, it’s the best way to build a product since it’s the founders who should know anything and everything about their customers. On the other hand, founders are often prone to the “founder bias”. They often see their products as their children that are always the best no matter what the objective reality is. This mindset influences their decision-making at the custdev stage and often leads to strategic mistakes. Let’s have a look at the most common ones.
Impatience
Any product is built with the aim of getting profit, so it’s natural that founders want to put their products on the market quickly. Unfortunately, many of them give in to the temptation to take shortcuts and skip “unnecessary” work. They often do too few customer interviews to get comprehensive data, or keep them too short to dig really deep into their customers’ problems.
Not enough respondents
To get reliable results, founders should interview a large group of respondents who fit their TA definition. However, since many founders believe their product is the best, they don’t seek opinions that contradict their belief. Once they get through the initial 3–5 customer interviews that confirm their hypotheses, a lot of them look no further. As a result, their business decisions are based on an insufficient understanding of the market.
Wrong questions
Asking the wrong questions is the most common mistake founders make, especially when they’re building their first products. A lot of things can go wrong here, from formulating the questions in a manner that determines responses to not going deep enough.
Emotional attachment
Sometimes, custdev clearly shows that there’s no market need for a product. However, customer interviews are an invaluable source of information if used wisely. Even when it’s evident that the initial idea is unviable, interviews may suggest a path to a pivot. Unfortunately, founders often get too attached to their ideas to consider alternatives.
Selling too early
Once respondents confirm they have a certain problem that a product is supposed to solve, many founders see them as warm leads and start selling their product right at the interview. When it happens, the majority of respondents start complimenting the product out of politeness. This, in turn, lures founders into a false sense of success while in reality, they have no clarity on what their customers want.
Lack of creativity
You can get a lot of insights from a relaxed conversation that veers off-script. If your respondent is comfortable, they may tell you things you didn’t even think of asking about. However, founders are often paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes, and follow scripts to the letter. While they can still source enough information to build a functional product, they miss things that may lead to a truly great one.
There are several methods founders can use to break out of this mindset. Firstly, once they’re experienced enough, it gets easier for them to sense if they are doing something wrong. Alternatively, they can delegate customer development to a third party that’s not emotionally attached to the product, like a product manager or a customer/market research agency. If that’s not an option, founders can invite an external observer such as mentor who can provide an unbiased opinion.
What other mistakes have you seen founders make during customer development?
