• Table of Contents

https://conception-x.disco.co/p/cohort-9/curriculum/overview?drawerOccurrenceId=T2NjdXJyZW5jZTozNzE2MDQyODk1MTc2MTIzNDI4&drawerEventTab=details

2__Learning_from_everyone_else.pdf

1b__Customer_Questions.pdf

1a__Customer_Learning_Goals.pdf

Target Market Segments

• You want to look for innovators and early adopters (people that are willing to try the imperfect product). Once you get to the late majority conservatives, you’re pretty safe.
• “The chasm” = the less risk tolerant users and you might have to switch up your marketing strategy. They want something that’s “proven” and won’t trust the words of early adopters. This session focuses on targeting the innovators and early adopters, who sit in their own ivory towers.
  • chasm 1: transition from concept to working prototype
  • chasm 2: transition from early product to fully functioning product with a commercially sustainable business model
  • chasm3: the transition from early customers to the main body of customers as the venture scales.

Attack the Beachhead

https://executive.mit.edu/launching-a-successful-start-up-3-the-beachhead-market-MC7FUMDZ6IU5AIPP4WGIPN2PZJI4.html

• Focus on a beachhead segment rather than spreading meager resources across a broad front.

• YOU MUST DESIGN FOR “ONE CUSTOMER” first.

  • be able to identify and reach them, and your target customers should talk to each other. That means that it should be obvious what the next segment should be.

  • Assuming you’re doing a good job, by word of mouth they’ll be talking to each other.

  • Think bowling pins as the Total Addressable Market. This is how Facebook started (from class to campus to other unis)

    

• Should you care how big your beachhead segment is? not really. For us, it’s probably the research ecosystem (@s.hadfield and Chris should do). Win this target segment first before moving to adjacent segments.

• Some questions worth thinking about

  • Who has a problem that your chosen industry is not solving adequately?
  • Who has a problem that is getting worse because of a mega trend?
  • Who ahas a problem that is resulting in ”felt pain” and thus actively searching for an alternative?

Customer Discovery

Many startups fail, not because they fail to build what they set out to build, but because they waste time, money and effort building the wrong product.

Search Phase and Execution Phase

Search Phase (Customer Discovery + customer validation) → Execution Phase (customer creation and company building)

1. Problem-solution fit