For this post I wanted to mirror what we’re currently working on at Techstars. Teams have spent the last month of the program validating and in some cases changing their idea with many customer interviews. You may think that you have an amazing idea that will solve a huge pain until you dig a little deeper and realize there is no pain or the pain is somewhere else. That’s OK. That’s what customer development is for.
Now we’re at the point in the program where it’s time to focus less on customer development (never forget about it though) and begin actually honing a product that some of the potential customers you’ve spoken with may actually buy and building a company that investors will want a piece of. Just like how investors look for dots of data that form lines, you should look for dots of data within your customer interviews that point to key features that they want. These nuggets of information are vitally important to what your product become and what features it will include.
We have teams at all kinds of different stages in the program right now. Some have viable products with customers signed, while some have little more than a well flushed out and validated idea with some wire mock-ups to boot. All of these teams have connected the dots they formed via customer interviews. Now it’s just time to build something. With that, happy building!
-Andy
