Customer Development is like Yoga

Some years ago I had the luxury of a private yoga teacher for a while. It seemed more effective and cheaper for my partner and me to have a teacher come to our place than to arrange for a babysitter and bike out to yoga class. And we would probably get more yoga since... well, since it would be in our own living room! Right? That was the theory.

So, Monday evenings, after a full day of work and having just put our kids to bed, the doorbell would ring. Our first response was: "oh, no - it's the yoga teacher..." After a long day, there were so many others things that seemed more tempting: a new season on Netflix, writing a blog post or getting to something else that we didn't get to during the day. Or just to chill out. Anything but a series of asanas and deep breaths on a rubber mat. After critical seconds of discussing the alternatives (don't open the door? hide behind the couch?) we always chose to welcome our teacher in and enjoy the yoga session.

After each yoga session, I feel like a different person. My focus is sharp. I am relaxed yet awake. I see the big picture, the perspectives of what I am doing and why. This is exactly what I feel after a customer interview. Talking to a randomly selected person from my target audience to find out that my new feature does solve a problem for them is magic. Even if the outcome is that they don't want the solution I had in mind, the feeling is almost as good.

Customer development is hard

Developing a new product can be a very demanding job. You want to get the product-market fit on your new feature, redesigned service or this new startup idea you've been working for several sprints now. The last thing you want to think of is a customer telling you that your brilliant idea stinks. So it's easy to not do customer interviews and founders always find reasons not to.

But of course, not you ;-) By the way, let me know if you recognize any of these 7 reasons why people skip customer interviews while they shouldn’t.

"This is what it's all about!"

After a proper customer interview I am 100 percent focused on delivering value to my customer. Distractions from the purpose are now clear moveable obstructions, and I just can't wait to get back to it. Even one interview can do that! Let alone five. A customer interview makes you humble. The fact that a customer is willing to share problems with you that block her from reaching her goals. The unexpected answers you get to the why-questions to uncover underlying personal emotions or business incentives lead to so many valuable insights.

"We should do this more often!"

Similar to what I feel after a yoga session, a customer interview always ends with my intention to do more of them. Ecstatically, I may even shout out that I want to do interviews every week! In practice, that doesn't happen. But the structural integration of customer development in your work is not far away after your first interviews, that's for sure. Like yoga and other sports, it becomes addictive. In a good way.

Find a teacher

Customer development - the art of talking to customers and solving their problems with great products - is hard. I enjoyed learning the art of customer development from 3 great teachers. This particular video showed me that interviewing customers is an essential innovation skill.

My customer development teacher top 3:

1. Justin Wilcox: Customer Discovery Hacks: Who do you interview? and What do you ask?
2. Steve Blank: Conducting a customer interview
3. Jake Knapp: How to do a user interview

Like with yoga, you should get a teacher. And you should open the door when they ring.

Learn how to do Customer Development

Time to work on your essential innovation skills - if you and your team want to learn from Justin Wilcox, here are two unique opportunities:

• This Thursday October 18 Justin hosts a virtual #askmeanything during Lean Startup Night Rotterdam. Register for free and tune in from your laptop at 18:00.
• Monday November 5th at B.Amsterdam we're hosting a halfday workshop with Justin Wilcox on how to do customer development. It's a highly interactive session in which you can choose 3 levels of engagement: watch, participate or bring your team and work on your case with the expert. Register at www.whatmakesyou.click.

Namaste.