More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development
stanford.edu
stanford.edu
Before I wrote my first line of code for my startup I went and interviewed about 50 regular people. I'd go sit at a train station and grab a guy reading a newspaper, and ask him why he wasn't reading it on his phone.
I'd grab people on the bus or in a queue for groceries on their phone (eg, using it, not talking) and spark up a conversation as to what they're upto.
Most of the time they'd happily give me their phone number after a brief chat, I kept in contact with them all, and rang them once I'd developed my product - quizzed them what I thought and so on.
I have another 100 or so users from Mechanical Turk about my product market that I've been too busy to analyze properly.
I like the idea of a product development cycle where the customers and users are shaping the product. I also really like the idea that I can easily validate a product concept by seeing if the people advising me would actually buy in to demo. This presentation has helped me feel more comfortable with the process of successful product development and sales.
Beware - just because something comes from Stanford, doesn't make it meaningful or insightful. This is just restating common knowledge with flow charts.
On meta note, to elevate the level of discussion here I suggest that you try addressing substance of the matter being presented, not attacking the personality of the presenter.
You, on the other hand, did not defend the content of the presentation, but rather cited some qualifications of the author - ironically, just what I warned against accepting as proof of credibility.
My counterpoint: Steven Blank has vast first-hand experience in startups.
Any more questions?
My point was not that the author is theorizing without connection to reality. My point was I've heard the same thing said in half a sentence that he took dozens of slides to say.
But it's got that nice academic sheen!
1. The founders must sell. They must listen to prospects.
2. They cannot hire a VP of sales until they have learned how to sell the product.
3. The founders should view their business as a guess.
4. They can see if they are correct by selling, which will confirm:
a. Who the customer is (who will pay for the product)
b. How to talk about the product
c. If product has the right featuresThis presentation is condensed from his book "Four Steps to the Epiphany" which is well worth reading. Eric Ries has written a good post that marries this methodology with agile at http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/customer-d...
Is there a reason why you thought so? Are you aware of a better way of doing this, according to you? We'd like to hear.
That much I got. How to do that with a startup idea, without developing enough to make a showable prototype, I donno. pclark's mechanical turk idea sounds pretty awesome.