Customer problem hypthesis

Goal

Develop a hypothesis of who the customer is and what problems the have that will drive them to use your product, before you leave the building.

Checklist

• Define the different types of "customer"
  • Who will be the actual day-to-day user of the product?
  • Who are the influencers and recommenders?
  • Who is the economic buyer?
  • Do you think the economic buyer has an existing budget for this product or do they need to get one approved?
  • Who are the decision makers?
  • Who else needs to approve the purchase?
  • Creating an Empathy Map@games may be helpful.
• Customer visionaries understand they have a pain and can visualize that there is a solution. Wher do you think you will find them?
  • In what title or function?
  • In what company type?
  • In what industry segment?
  • Reminder: a visionary is a paying customer
• Where in an organization do you think your first customers are?
  • What departments?
  • What are their titles?
  • How do they differ from later customers?
• What problem does the customer have?
• What do you think the biggest pain is in how they work?
  • Is it the same on all levels of the company?
  • If they could wave a magic wand and change anything, what would it be?
  • Since your product doesn't exist, what do people do today to solve their problem?
  • Don't do it? Do it badly? Don't recognize the need?
• Where on the problem recognition scale is each type of customer (see also Earlyvangelists)?
  • Latent need, you recognize that your customers has a need for your solution but they do not (yet)
  • Active need, the buyer is in pain (recognizes the need but does not know how to solve it)
  • Has a vision for a solution, (the buyer has a vision on how to solve their problem)
• What is the organizational impact of this pain?
  • Individual?
  • Departmental?
  • Corporate?
• Define the magnitude of the customer need - Is this a mission critical product?
  • Is this a have to have product?
  • Is this a nice to have product?
  • Is this product so important that they have built it themselves?
  • How well do the product features and benefits fit?
• How does the potential user spend their day now?
  • What products do they use? How much time do they spend using them?
  • How would their world change for these users after they had your product?
  • How would it change their day / livers?
  • Would there be new users?
  • Summarize the "Day in the life of a customer"
• How would customers justify return of investment for this product?
  • What will be measured?
  • Revenues? Cost reduction or containment? Displaced costs? Avoided costs? Intangible?
• What is the smallest / least complicated problem that can be solved for which the customer will pay for?
  • What is the smallest feature set for the first release?

Exit deliverables

• Customer and Problem Model
  • Including workflow and proces
  • Including customer pain
  • Including the organizational impact (individual, departmental, corporate)

Part of: Customer Development Checklist - Customer Discovery Part of book: The Four Steps to the Epiphany