Louise Bayne is a world-class designer, researcher and expert at uncovering problems worth solving.
In this episode of the Climate Tech Product Show, she shares:
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How to understand a customer's context in order to uncover problems worth solving
Here are three tips to help uncover problems worth solving through customer conversations:
1) Don't miss the broader context in which your customer lives:
If you don't understand your customer's context, you'll miss what's motivating them or why would they like your solution. Different customer types are going to like it for different reasons and operate in different contexts, so it's important to understand these. The Jobs-To-Be-Done framework is useful for this.
2) Does it align with your business' vision?
It can be problematic if there is a mismatch between your business' ambitions and purpose, and; where the customer wants to go and needs. You risk either being single-minded (pursuing your vision) or getting pulled in a direction that you don't want to move in.
3) Fall in love with the problem, not the solution:
There is hope though. Following these insights and falling in love with the customer's problem - and chucking your solution - can be the potential sweet spot.
Either way, if you don't understand the customer's context, you'll never know.
How anyone can have better customer conversations
For early-stage startups, hiding behind a survey, ad or landing page experiment isn't going to cut it. Investors want insights!
Here are six tips she shared to help Climate Techs have better customer conversations:
1) Anyone can do conversational research
- Start small, build confidence in asking questions aligned to your objectives and chat with customers often (not one big chunk upfront). Zoom has made this easier than ever. Get started and then reflect on what worked and what didn't work. We are all capable of having conversations.
- Get help. Have these conversations with someone that can help take notes and also ask questions of their own.
2) Define your objectives upfront
- Before you meet people, identify 3-5 things that you want to know about them.
- Capture the hypothesis that you believe to be correct. How can you validate it?
- Capture the assumptions that need to be true for your hypothesis to be correct. How can you reframe these are non-leading questions?
3) Identify a couple of people that are in the target market
- Think: if you had two people with the same demographics, what attribute sets them apart and would make them most receptive to your solution? Use this attribute to recruit people.
- Meet as many people as you can afford. One customer is better than none.
- Avoid people who are close to you personally - they are too biased.
4) Before you launch into questions, find out more about them - aka their context.
- Use this as a warm-up
- Explore attitudes and beliefs.
- What's motivating them? Why would they like your solution?
- Ash Maurya has an awesome tool called the "Customer Forces Canvas" which is a good guide to follow.
5) Pair conversations with observation and contextual enquiry.
Ask them to act out, show you or demonstrate how they solve the problem today. This also gives you an opportunity to spot their current solution and existing alternatives.
6) Then (and only then!) introduce the solution
- Ask non-leading questions: ask "How would this work in your life", not "what do you like and not like"
- Ask open-ended questions that avoid yes/no answers: ask "why is that important?", not "is this important to you"
- Turn their questions into a question back at them: turn "what does this feature do?", into "what do you think this feature does?"
- You'll typically hear: "This might work for other people", so you should probe deeper and ask "We'll speak to them some other time, you tell me what you think"
Search google for the Lean Startup's customer-problem and problem-solution interview.
How to use surveys properly
I keep hearing Climate Tech startups say they've validated their problem through a survey. I'm not convinced.
Here are three tips she shared to help Climate Techs use surveys properly:
1) Even a pro researcher gets help to write survey questions:
While tools like survey monkey or Typeform make it easy to get something out the door, you still need help writing the questions properly. There is a lot of science and behaviour economics that goes into asking questions properly and removing the biases that we bring as researchers or survey participants.
2) Get out of the building and have a conversation first.
I don't want to discourage you from running surveys, but in the beginning, you're better off having customer conversations.
Once you've had customer conversations and you're in the territory of "there's something here", that's where surveys can help.
3) Use surveys to quantify the magnitude of the problem or appeal of your solution across different customer types.
Take, for example, these results:
- We surveyed two different customer types: N% of those surveyed were Type-1 and M% were Type-2.
- X% of type-1 customers have problem 1 which is addressed by product feature A.
- Y% of type-2 customers have problem 2 which is addressed by product feature B
With the results, then ask yourself:
- Which customer type do you want to serve?
- Which customer type is the early adopter?
- Which customer type do you need to convert to grow your SOM?
- Which customer problem do you want to (or can you) solve?
- Which customer problem is aligned with your vision?
- Which product feature is aligned with your solution?
Is the solution you had in mind even relevant to the mix of product features, customer problems and customer types that you can reach?
If you're an early-stage startup, you are probably spread thin already. So, should you keep "all doors open" and continue to invest time & effort into different directions, customer types, problems and solutions? Or focus your resources and prioritise one? I think you know the answer.
How to use customer insights to get investors across the line
It's no surprise that Climate Tech investors like to know that you've validated a customer problem and validated that your solution solves it.
It's an insurance policy that de-risks their investment.
The stronger and more compelling your validation is, the easier it'll be to get purse strings to open.
Here are three tips she shared to help Climate Techs use customer insights to get investors across the line:
1) Empower your investors
- People like it when we inform and educate them. Think about your audience and how you'll share the research.
- Package and tailor the outcomes of the research in a way that speaks to the audience.
- Data beats opinions. Don't hide behind vox pops and customer quotes.
2) Make it tangible
- Humans crave connection with other humans and research helps us get closer to our customers and helps investors feel encouraged that we're on the right path. It helps them understand how the solution works and for whom
- Use insights to tell a story. A classic frame for this comes from comparing "how it is today" versus "how it could be with our solution"
3) Don't just sweep the ugly stuff under the rug
- Highlight what is working and what is not. What are the areas where further research is required?
- Outline what you don't know.
- Outline the risks, assumptions, and potential upside/downside
There is a point at which your investors will need to take risks. But, how big is the leap that you are asking them to take? Well-presented and sound research can help make them feel it's not big at all.