Talking to customers is a critical factor in building a successful company.
It’s never more important than when you’re just getting started and still pre-product/market fit.
All of the secondary research in the world won’t tell you how people actually think, how they rank their pain points in comparison to others, or what they’ll pay for a given solution in time or money.
There’s been plenty written about how to conduct customer interviews — I’m personally a fan of most of Sachin Rekhi’s posts on the subject — but less written about how to practically setup enough of these interviews to validate or invalidate your product hypotheses.
Personally I’ve developed my own methods underneath what I call the Grand Theory Of Customer Validation.
It’s pretty simple: Don’t start building your product, don’t stop validating or invalidating your startup idea until you’ve spent a minimum of $1000.
Also known as a “grand”.
The number itself is fairly arbitrary. It could be $800. It could be $2000. But the idea remains the same. You want to get some skin in the game as you validate this idea to make sure it’s what you really want to be doing, to move beyond paying this idea lip service, and to value the time and energy of the people you’re validating against.
$1000 isn’t a trivial amount of money for most people. It will require some sacrifice. It will hurt a little to see it go up in flames. So make sure you design your validation process tightly. Make sure you understand the hypotheses you’re trying to validate. Make sure you ask the right people the right questions.
Having a grand also makes it somewhat easier to recruit interview candidates.
> Buy 10 people a cup of coffee.
> Buy the next 5 a sandwich.
> Offer $50 Amazon gift cards for high value candidates
> Hire a list builder on Upwork to run a survey.
Each step builds understanding of the customer, the problem and how this relates to your original vision of the product.
Each step narrows your focus of the problem, the solution set and the ideal customer segment.
Each step takes you closer to in/validation.
All for a grand.
Money well spent.
