Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development | Hacker News Reader

Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development

startuplessonslearned.com

39 pointsnatgordon14 comments

I'd like to pick apart this post as a piece of really brilliant marketing. It gets so many things right:

* Link to a review

* Reviewer puts book in context of things I've already read. Gains trust.

* Incentive to evangelize -- the product is like this awesome book I've read, but easier to read. Everyone should read that awesome book, but it's too hard. Maybe I can convince them to read this.

* HN is the absolute perfect, laser-focused market for this. By definition, I want to read this book.

* The pricing sheet looks like a 37signals page--it's comforting and familiar

* DRM-free instant delivery.

This is actually the fastest (other than maybe at a grocery store) I have ever made a purchasing decision. It was under 60 seconds.

Damn, I wish I had marketing skills like this.

Only thing remaining is positive customer feedback on the book. Awaiting your evaluation. :)

I agree - beautifully done.

In addition:

-Release an ebook now, ask for feedback, improve and add content, and perhaps release a physical book and get paid again.

-The fact that Eric mentions that this book is heavy on customer discovery and less so on the other parts leaves plenty of room for expansion on this book or new ones from scratch.

Very happy to see a 4 steps like book aimed specifically towards startup founders, I learnt a lot from 4 steps but it always had its feet in the enterprise sales side of the line.

Will also be nice to have a well finished / properly printed book, Blanks insight and advice is amazing, but the microsoft word diagrams left something to be desired.

Hi there.

Thanks for the kind words.

Please feel free to let @brantcooper and me (@vlaskovits) know what you think of the book: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Could anyone point to/share a discount code? Thanks!

LEAN ($6.25) SLLCONF ($5.25)

Great introduction to customer development that all startup founders should read (along with Four Steps to the Epiphany).

How many pages has this book? I don't see the number anywhere. Could be my fault though.

@macco

There are two versions of the book. The Bootstrapper version is 75 pages, and The Startup/Enterprise Versions are 90 pages (include a presentation about CustDev that evangelists can use internally at their orgs).

Great marketing, great sample, and timely content.

I just bought a copy. I'd be very interested to see the sales volume data after the HN submission.

Can I convince you to do a aftermath blog post?

Do you know the book from Steve Blank? What are the difference between them. Is it worth a buy, if you own the "Four Steps to Epiphany".

I literally said "wow" as I went through the sample. This is a beautifully made PDF and I'll be sure to buy it soon. Amazing.

Wow, this looks gorgeous in fullscreen mode. Can't wait to start reading :)

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