All In Startup - Diana Kander
These are the BOLD items from within the story. I’ve listed them in order as they appear in the book.
Idea 1- Startups are about finding customers, not building products.
Idea 2- People don’t buy products or services; they buy solutions to their problems.
Idea 3- Entrepreneurs are detectives, not fortunetellers.
Idea 4- Successful entrepreneurs are luck makers, not risk takers.
Vanity Metrics (press coverage, the site visits, all that stuff) make you feel good, but it doesn’t really measure anything useful. It doesn’t really depict the health of your company.
The way to start a successful company, is to solve problems that your customers are already experiencing rather than try to convince them that a problem exists.
You just can’t predict how these irrational human beings will act.
You can’t really declare guesses to be facts without first interacting with your customers to figure out if you’re right or wrong.
It’s not about creating a great solution and hoping the market adopts it; it’s about understanding your customers first and creating something that adds value to their lives.
Put your customers and their needs before your vision for a solution.
Winning at this tournament wasn’t about luck, it was about reducing the number of times she had to get lucky.
Companies don’t go out of business because they fill to build a product. Companies go out of business because they fail to build anything that people want.
People don’t buy visionary products, people buy solutions to their problems.
If your business is failing from the get-go it means that either you built a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist, or your customers don’t know they have the problem or it’s not important enough that they are willing to pay money to solve it, or your solution doesn’t actually solve the problem.
You will significantly increase your chances of startup success if you focus on solving only those problems that are causing serious issues for your customers.
Before you do anything, and I mean anything else, figure out who your customer is, what their problem is, and will they buy the product to solve their problem?
You can’t answer any of those questions on your own. Only Through interactions with your customers.
Take yourself out of sales mode when trying to identify your customer and their problem.
Clearly articulate the idea in a way that describes value. Ex 1: I will help (CUSTOMERS) solve (PROBLEM) by (SOLUTION).
Ex 2: Owen will help people who shop at specialty bike stores Solve the problem of not wanting to pay retail for a quality road bike By providing an online store where they can buy quality refurbished bicycles at half the price of new bikes at those retail locations.
I know i have a Problem Worth Solving because:
- My customers are __________.
- Their problem is ____________.
- They are currently solving their problem by ____________.
- They have tried other solutions in the past by __________.
- On a scale of 1-10, the seriousness of the problem is ________.
- They would spend $______ to fix this problem.
First and foremost figure out if price is a problem and what customer segment it’s a problem for.
You can’t rationalize why price is a problem on your own; the only way to answer these questions is through conversations with real people you don’t know who actually fit into your customer description.
Once you hit that nerve, they aren’t just going to agree with you and walk away. They'll tell you what they are currently doing to try to solve it. All the things they’ve tried in the past that didn’t work. Even how much money they’ve spent trying to find a solution. When you bring up a migraine problem, you’ll see the customer’s eyes dilate right in front of you, like you just struck your finger in a serious wound.
The bigger the pain, the easier it will be to sell the solution.
Remember to listen. Don’t load questions. Don’t sell them on a problem.
Don’t use “would you”! Those are the worst two words you can start a sentence with! Don’t ask yes or no questions. Make sure you are giving them plenty of opportunities to tell their story. Their true feelings aren’t going to be the direct answers to your questions, but in the stories they tell you around their answers. We don’t care about anything they have to say about the future. Only how they act and feel in the present and the past.
The ability to face failure and rejection is one of the greatest strengths of successful entrepreneurs.
Interviewing your potential customers and learning about their actual problems and needs gives you a much more powerful starting positions than guessing about those needs on your own.
If you spend time trying to gather intelligence, every now and then, you’ll get lucky and strike gold!
People sitting down are more likely to talk and endure questions than people walking or standing.
Always qualify your interviews to make sure they are customer segment you are targeting and not just a random person.
Ask open-ended questions to get them talking.
Potential customers will be a lot more open about their problems if you don’t try to sell them something during the initial interview.
Try to get the potential customer to articulate their pain without leading them in any way.
Problems don’t count unless they’ve spent time and money trying to fix them. It has to be a real need.
Don’t be all business. The more conversational you can be, the more they will share.
Always ask a potential customer if they know anyone else you could interview.
Spend the least amount of resources figuring out if your assumptions are right or wrong.
Nothing else matters until you can prove that customers want your product.
You’ll just be a lot more likely to act on this information if you gather it yourself.
Just finding a problem worth solving alone won’t guarantee success-you have to prove that customers want your solution.
The goal is to find the shortest path from your idea to this ultimate customer action.
Never ask “would you?” It’s the worst question you could ask because you won’t learn anything.
The only way to tell if they want it, that it actually relieves their migraine, is to get them to actually perform the ultimate action.
You want to find the shortest path possible to the ultimate action. What’s the smallest bet you could make, in terms of time and money, to get your customers to give you a preorder or their credit card number, or a letter of intent or something?
ReBicycle Notes-
1) Do not operate on tilt! A fear of failure is not a strategy.
2) Make small bets. You can afford to lose to find the opportunities. Continue to interview potential customers to find the migraines.
3) Reduce the risk of failure by figuring out which business plan assumptions are right or wrong.
4) Reduce the risk of failure by finding a real problem worth solving.
5) Once you find an opportunity, reduce the risk of failure by simulating the ultimate customer action before you invest much time or money.
Bottom Line: You can create luck by getting customers as soon as possible and not wasting time or money building something no one needs or wants.
All In Challenge:
1) Are you mentally prepared to run a startup? Have you overcome fear of failure? Do you know how to identify opportunities through small bets you can afford to lose?
2) Has he identified a problem worth solving? Is it a migraine level pain? Did your specific customer segment articulate the pain and beg for the solution?
3) Have you confirmed that customers will buy your product to solve their problem? What is the shortest path to the ultimate customer action?
4) is there a business model to support this company? Is it capable of making the kind of revenue you’re looking for? Does he have access to the people, capital, and skills necessary to execute the plan?
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Still buy the book. It was a fun read.
-Chase Smith
