Transcription:

We know that zooming prematurely and introducing your idea too early creates biases and can get you stuck on a local maximum. In his original book on Customer Development, 4 Steps to the Epiphany, Steve Blank solves this by recommending 3 separate meetings: the first about the customer and their problem; the second about your solution; and the third to sell a product. By splitting the meetings, you avoid the premature zoom and biasing them with your ideas.

In practice, however, I’ve found it both difficult and inefficient to set them up. The time cost of a 1-hour meeting is more like 4 hours once you factor in the calendar dance, commuting, and reviewing. It’s also a big time commitment to ask from the customer before you’re in a position to show them anything in return.

When you strip all the formality from the process, you end up with no meetings, no interview questions, and a much easier time. The conversations become so fast and lightweight that you can go to a industry meet-up and leave with a dozen customer conversations under your belt, each of which provided as much value as a formal meeting.

The structure of separate problem/solution/sales conversations is critical for avoiding bias, but it’s important to realize that the first one doesn’t actually need to be a meeting.

Rule of thumb: Learning about a customer and their problems works better as a quick and casual chat than a long, formal meeting.

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