Ask HN: A lot of trouble trying to do customer development

#1

Post by a_lifters_life » Fri, Dec 30, 2016, 10:46 AM UTC

Hn, I've been having a lot of trouble trying to get individuals in my target market to want to do customer development interviews.

Are they imperative in an existing market ? What do you do to get companies to want to give you 15min of their time ?

Re: Ask HN: A lot of trouble trying to do customer development

#2

Post by skmurphy » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 1:33 AM UTC

What are you trying to learn?

If the market is well defined you can start with a discovery driven sales approach where you sell against the existing solution your prospect is using and keep your eyes and ears open as to why the choose to stick with it or switch to your offer.

Re: Ask HN: A lot of trouble trying to do customer development

#3

Post by ciaravino » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 12:30 PM UTC

Customer and user research is critical. Can you provide more info on your initiative, market, incentives you're offering, and what you've already tried?

Re: Ask HN: A lot of trouble trying to do customer development

#4

Post by a_lifters_life » Sat, Dec 31, 2016, 1:39 PM UTC

skmurphy wrote: post #2

What are you trying to learn? If the market is well defined you can start with a discovery driven sales approach where you sell against the existing solution your prospect is using and keep your eyes and ears open as to why the choose to stick with it or switch to your offer.

Well ultimately if they'd want to buy my product but well before that does it make sense to develop something before talking to them?

Re: Ask HN: A lot of trouble trying to do customer development

#5

Post by skmurphy » Mon, Jan 09, 2017, 7:34 AM UTC

a_lifters_life wrote: post #4

skmurphy wrote: post #2

What are you trying to learn? If the market is well defined you can start with a discovery driven sales approach where you sell against the existing solution your prospect is using and keep your eyes and ears open as to why the choose to stick with it or switch to your offer.

Well ultimately if they'd want to buy my product but well before that does it make sense to develop something before talking to them?

If you are having trouble getting prospects to talk to you how will having a product change that? Unless you are attacking an existing well defined market it makes sense to talk to prospects about what you are developing to make sure you don't leave something important out (or spend too much time adding features no one cares about).