The importance of talking to customers as a startup

Steve Blank · April 29, 2014 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/3653

Stanford and Berkeley Lean LaunchPad classes

Our Stanford and Berkeley Lean LaunchPad classes are over for this year, and as usual we learned as much from teaching the teams as the teams did from us.

Here are a few of the Lessons Learned from these two classes.

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Have each team talk to 10 customers before the class starts
Each year we learn how to move more of the Lean LaunchPad class logistics outside our classroom so teams have more time for in-class learning.

A few years ago, we moved the formation of teams’ to before the class started and in doing so, saved a week of what normally be an in-class time activity. To make this happen, we hold three “information sessions” two weeks apart before the class starts. In these “info sessions” we describe the purpose of the class, and then let students mix, meet and form teams. During this pre-class time we share a Google doc where students who have ideas can find other team members, and students without an idea can find a team that matches their skills and interests. Application and admission to the class is by interview with a fully formed team.

Info session announcement

The next thing we learned is to make applying to the class an integral part of the learning process. Teams apply by filling out both a business model canvas and a “competitive petal slide.” Having the teams do this accomplishes three things. First it forces the students to read and understand “what’s a business model canvas” before they even come to class.

Team Application: Business Model Canvas

Second, the competitive slide enforces a modicum of due diligence on the product and market. (We got tired of knowing more about each team’s market by doing a Google search as they presented. Now it’s their job.)

Team Application: Competitive “Petal” Slide

Finally, having teams spend time on the canvas and competition as part of the application process saves weeks of what would normally be an in-class activity (and as a bonus gives the team a heads-up about the difficulty of the class and shows whether they’re serious about the class or just shopping.)

This year we learned to raise the bar once again. Could we get the teams to come into class having already talked to 10 customers? Instead of using the first class to have teams just present their business model canvas, this time the team’s first presentation would be about what they learned outside the building about their value proposition. (We pointed them to our tutorials on customer discovery and how to conduct customer interviews but didn’t expect them to be experts on week 1.)

1st week team title slide – 11 interviews before class started

We did an A/B test by requiring our teams in one school do this while not requiring it for the teams in the other school. The result? Teams that had to talk to customers before the class hit the ground running. There was a substantive difference in team trajectory and velocity that continued throughout the quarter. The amount of learning between the two felt quite different. While there may have been other factors (team selection bias, team make up, etc.), we’ll now make this an integral part of all the classes.

Have each team put the number of Mentor interactions on their weekly title slide
The second innovation this year involved mentors. Each team is assigned a mentor as a coach. We’ve been trying to figure out how to make mentor engagements with their teams a regular rather an adhoc activity. While we have required the teams to add a summary of any mentor interaction to their LaunchPad Central narrative, we felt we didn’t have sufficient high-level visibility for these essential interactions.

But this year, a seemingly minor change to the teams’ weekly cover slide had an important impact. As teams present each week, their cover slides show the number of customers interviewed for that week (>10) along with the cumulative customers interviewed. This year we added one more metric for their cover slides– the number of mentor interactions for that week (>1) along with the cumulative number of mentor interactions.

This enhanced the visibility of the teams interaction (or lack of) with their mentors and allowed us to proactively intervene early if there wasn’t sufficient interaction.