Build simple solutions to understand customer needs

How we built a custom eventing system to understand customer behavior from the start

We’ve all heard of the Lean Startup approach. Build fast, learn, and iterate. And building the MVP of LegUp’s platform was no exception. We went from early market tests to a product used by child care providers and families in less than three months. That journey is a story for another time, but you can appreciate at that speed it’s easy to go heads-down into the code. It’s tempting to obsess on the product more than the customer need that you’re addressing. That’s the problem I found our development team falling into.

We did early customer interviews. We codified our pre-product manual processes. I knew the broader problem we were solving up front. But as you build, how do you know if your design nailed the core value proposition? How do you tell how your MVP customers are actually using your tools — beyond what they tell you? Did our providers understand how to “go through the funnel” to post their open seats with us?

On the surface, this might seem more like a “big company” problem. But it was important for me to develop an engineering culture at LegUp that focuses on data-driven analysis and connects with the customer problems the business is solving. There are…