you have a business idea, but what's next?
TRANSCRIPT
You have a business idea, but what’s next?
Dan McGaw - Founder - Bootstrap Academy
Who am I ?
@danielmcgaw
Who am I ?
What’s your business idea?
Are you the next Facebook?
Are you the next Uber?
Maybe the next General Mills?
Anything is possible with
Hard Work
Persistence
The right tools
But what tools do you need?
Goals
Not business goals
Personal Goals
Personal Goals
Personal Goals
Personal Goals
Personal Goals
Personal Goals
Personal Goals
Only you can define
Back to your idea
Not all ideas are good
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot
How do we know if it is a good idea?
Customer Validation
Customer Validation
Customer Development
What customer development is not
It is not a focus group or survey
What customer development is not
Or a perfect formula that completely de-risks a business idea
What customer development is not
Or a scalable customer acquisition technique
Customer Development Done Right
Start with your idea, aka
Customer Development Done Right
Find your target customers
Customer Development Done Right
Create a list of questions
Dont mess your questions up
Ask general questions
Not pointed questions
Dont talk about solutions
After every question ask why
Ask why again
Ask why another time
Then when you are done asking why
Ask them why again
Write everything down
Or record the session
Example
Launched an MVP
Hypothesis
Marketing influencers on twitter would use Monetyze.me to generate extra cash
from their large followings
What did we learn?
Our Takeaways
Marketers hate the service
Our Takeaways
People want to donate more if they can
Our Takeaways
Especially when they can donate other people’s money
Our Takeaways
People manage twitter from mobile or buffer
What you should be learning
Create a list of questionsYou should end up with your
Create a list of questionsOr you could end up with your
Create a list of questionsEither way
Refine and Optimize
Create a list of questionsHopefully your idea wasn't trashed
Create a list of questionsBut if it was
Create a list of questionsAt least you didn't throw money away
Look for the patterns
Use these patterns to refine your idea
Use patterns to refine your messaging
If after 20 interviews no one cares
Kill your magical feature
If after 20 interviews no one cares
Or consider killing the whole idea
Repeat
Do it all over again
Keep iterating your idea
Eventually it will pay off
Thank You
@danielmcgaw
CEO and Founder