1. Lean
Customer
Development
Cindy Alvarez

4. YESNO

5. Let’s start
with a
hypothesis
(guess)…

6. I believe
[type of person]
needs to solve
[problem]
which happens when
[performing task].

7. time to pivot

8. What are your assumptions?
• Motivations
• Current behaviors
• Ability to change
• Decision-making criteria
• Problem frequency
• Problem severity

9. So, where am I
going to find
customers…?

10. And why would
random people
be willing to
talk to me?

11. Social psychology is on
our side
• Most customers are
“unrecognized experts”
• We love to sound smart
• We love to be helpful
• We love to feel in control of
our destiny (make things
better in our lives)

12. People do not care about
• Your credentials
• Your personal history
• Your product (don’t sell me
#@*%!)

13. My name is
[name]
and I’m trying to solve
[problem]
and I’d love to learn
from you because
[reason].
Could you talk with me
for 20 minutes?

15. Getting people to talk (a
lot):
• Thank you!
• I’m going to talk as little as
possible
• Nothing you say will be boring

16. Getting people to talk (a
lot):
• Tell me about the last time…
• 60 seconds of silence
• No “yes/no” questions
• Who / What / When / How / Why

17. But what if I
ask the wrong
questions?

18. Tell me about how you do
_________ today…

19. Do you use any
[tools/products/apps/tricks] to
help you get ________ done?

20. Last time you did ___________,
what were you doing right before
you got started?
Once you finished, what did you
do after?

21. If you could wave a magic wand
and be able to do anything that
you can’t do today, what would
it be?
(Don’t worry about if it’s
possible)

22. Is there anything else about
_________ that I should have
asked about?

23. Who do you know that I should
also be talking with? Who else
cares a lot/is affected by
______?

24. And then can I
show them my
product?

25. NO

26. I’ve learned so much from you!
I think we’ll have some
ideas/prototype/demo ready in a
week or two.
Can I get back in touch then and
show you something?

27. OK, great. But
what do I do
with all these
notes?

28. Making sense of what you
hear:
• Validates
• Invalidates
• Emotion
• Surprises

29. Live
Customer
Development
Advice
Time!

30. Customer Development
‘Ask’ Templates:
http://bit.ly/16K4mhM

31. Customer Development
Tools:
http://bit.ly/14a30PQ
(feel free to add to
this!)

32. You can ask questions anytime!
cindy@cindyalvarez.com or @cindyalvarez