Become a Young Successful Entrepreneur

“If your customer doesn’t want to buy the product, then there’s no way you can sell it to them”

We all get brilliant ideas.  Part of our failure to sell our product is that our target market does not want to purchase our brilliant idea.  The absolute worst situation that you can get into is to spend time and money finishing a product, only to find out that no one wants to buy your product.

As CMOs, Marketing Directors, or Product Directors of our startup, it’s our duty to make sure there is a market for the products that we are building.  This post is designed to show you exactly how to survey your target market and make sure that there is a market who will purchase your product.

My current Customer Development project

My team’s most recent idea is to create a “lite” version of our product that is affordable and beneficial to bloggers.

The Idea: One of the features of our current product accomplishes the following for ecommerce stores:

1. Increases email list subscribers
2. Provides valuable social and demographic data about email list subscribers

Since we’re doing this for ecommerce stores, why not create a simple, plug-and-play solution for bloggers?

So now that we have an idea about what bloggers may want, it’s my job to survey the target market (do Customer Development) and find out if this is something that bloggers want, and most importantly, if this is something bloggers would pay for.

How to begin the Customer Development process

First and foremost, you need to find your target.  For our current idea, the market is quite easy for me to approach.  I’ve been blogging for 3 years now and have built great relationships with influential bloggers online.  All I had to do was send out a few emails and I got 5 conversations set up this week to talk/pitch my idea to bloggers.

A better example

Viralogy is targeting Ecommerce companies that range from $1M - $10M in annual revenue.  When we started this iteration of the company back in January, we had very few contacts in the ecommerce world that fit our target.

We therefore had to find these contacts from scratch.

How to find people to interview when you don’t know anyone in your target market?

Step 1: Use Linkedin

The first thing I did was research on LinkedIn to find any ecommerce directors in my network:

1. Click on “Add Connections” on the top right to connect with all of the people I’ve ever emailed
2. Go to the search bar and type “Ecommerce”
3. Create a list of 100 people in my network that I would like to survey
4. Find the LinkedIn Groups that they’re in and join them*
5. Message the ecommerce professionals with my Customer Development template email

*If you’re in the same group as another professional, then you’re able to send them a private message via LinkedIn.

I sent out 100 requests and positively back from 22 professional - just above a 20% return.  This is the message I used on LinkedIn:

Hi David,

I just joined the Ecommerce Club LinkedIn Group and wanted to introduce myself.  I’m Jun from Viralogy and we’re building a new ecommerce platform that takes advantage of the Facebook Social Graph to increase conversion rates and average order value for stores.

I’m messaging you specifically to request a 15-minute chat to tell you about our product and receive your feedback.  I noticed that you have 6 years of experience as the Director of Ecommerce for a company, and I strongly feel that your valuable feedback will allow me to better tailor my product to provide great value to online stores.

I am available the following days and times to chat via phone or Skype:

1. Date and time (I make sure that it’s in their timezone)
2. Date and time (I make sure that it’s in their timezone)
3. Date and time (I make sure that it’s in their timezone)

Thank you very much in advance and I look forward to speaking with you.

All the best,

Jun Loayza

Send this message out to 100 people and you will not go wrong.

Step 2: Use Jigsaw

Jigsaw is a great database that provides the email and phone numbers of professionals you want to target:

1. Collect every single business card that I have and add the contacts to Jigsaw so that I can get points
2. Search for “Ecommerce” or “Ecommerce Director” to find professionals
3. Find a list of 100 professionals to target
4. Use my credits to “purchase” the emails for these 100 people
5. Message the professionals with my Customer Development email

Since you don’t have the intro of being in the same LinkedIn group, this method is significantly less effective.  Out of the 100 messages that I sent out, 11 people replied to my email - an 11% return.

This is the email I sent:

Subject: Jun from Viralogy: The latest social commerce trends for your feedback

Hi David,

My name is Jun and I’m with Viralogy - a social commerce platform that personalizes the shopping experience for online stores.  I’m messaging you today specifically because I’d like to get your feedback on the product that we’re building.

I noticed that you’ve been in the ecommerce industry for more than 6 years, and I strongly believe that your valuable feedback will allow us to better tailor our product to solve the needs of online stores. In return, I’d like to tell you about the social commerce industry and how the new mobile platforms and social sites will affect online retail.

I am available the following days and times to chat via phone or Skype:

1. Date and time (I make sure that it’s in their timezone)
2. Date and time (I make sure that it’s in their timezone)
3. Date and time (I make sure that it’s in their timezone)

Thank you very much in advance and I look forward to speaking with you.

All the best,

Jun Loayza

Notice how I make a strong point to let the professional know that I want to give him something in return for his valuable feedback.  Professionals are busy, and unless they get something in return, they are not going to take their time to help you out.

Should I interview them via email or via phone?

A phone interview is always your number 1 choose.  If there is absolutely no way that this person will give you phone time, then you can settle for an email interview.

A phone interview allows you to ask follow up questions, listen to their pauses and the tone of their voice, and receive information that an email could never tell you.

Questions to ask

Specific questions completely depend on the industry and product that you are building.  Here are the list of questions that every company should always ask the customers that they are interviewing:

1. Before you pitch your product
2. What are your current pains?
3. How are you looking to solve these pains?
4. Pitch your product
5. Do you feel our product solves your current pain?
6. How much would you pay for our solution?
7. Would you use our solution if it was free?

The above questions need to be asked and documented so that you and your team can look them over.

How to document the interview

Have your laptop out in front of you while you conduct the customer development interview. It is imperative that you jot down notes in real time so that you capture everything the client sales.  If possible, record your call with the customer so that you can review it later with your team (please be transparent and ask for permission to record the call).

I use PB Works to document all of my customer development interviews in a folder that my entire team can access.

The review process

Look over your notes with your team and honestly answer the following questions:

1. Does our product solve a pain for our target customer?
2. Does our target customer want our product?
3. Will our target customer pay for our product?

If the answer is “No” for any of these questions, then you may need to iterate the product.  If the people you interviewed did not want your product, it does NOT mean that no one wants your product; it just means that the market you spoke to did not want your product.  There could be another market that wants your product.

Keep conducting customer development until you find the right market or you realize that your product is not a viable business.

Back to my current Customer Development project

I spoke with Monica O’Brien, Financial Samurai, and Adam Baker today who all offered terrific insights about our product idea.  Adam actually brought up a good point that may get us to scrap the idea.

Important point: Create a visual deck that allows the interviewer to understand your concept better and provide you with better feedback

Here is the deck I created for Baker:

Adam mentioned that if Aweber decides to create a Facebook Connect button themselves, then bloggers would not need to pay for our product.  It’s a valid point that was discovered because I spent time to do Customer Development.

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Don’t skip the customer development step.  If it’s your job to sell the product to clients, then you need to know that the clients need your product and will pay for your product.

Customer development will only make sales easier.