The Sunjay Times

The following is a post for ideas of things to build, but this one in particular could be also be a useful way to gather competitive intelligence on someone else’s business. This is a continuation of my series of meta-ideas.

Back story: A few months back I discovered a tech startup that was building an intriguing product (a bit of a technology risk – not as trivial as implementing a mobile or web app), that I thought was a brilliant idea. They’re well funded, great team, been at it for a while. I loved the idea but wasn’t sure how actual prospective customers would react to it (it was also a bit of a market risk).

So I slapped together a Craigslist ad (or choose whatever $0 or nominal way to advertise), listing the benefits of the product, and listed my phone and email as the contact info.

I researched the product and company’s literature so that I could also all the questions a sales person could, and when people contacted me, I would spring into action – putting myself into the mindset as if I was a sales rep working at that company. In case you’re wondering, I make it clear I’m not working for the company, so I’m not “misrepresenting”. I think of myself volunteering to do some free lead-gen. I’m just interested in learning how the market would react to their product.

As I answer the prospective customers questions, I also ask them questions to qualify them as a customer, and open-ended customer development questions to discover any reservations they have, what they like about it, what they wish it could do .. basically gleaning information to do a rough SWOT analysis on the product and what the company’s missing in their whole product.

With this specific product I was curious about, even though I thought the idea was great, I found out that the product wasn’t as useful to a certain segment of their target market, that prospects were not receptive to the pricing plan, and discovered some use-cases that the company could tout as their value prop that they didn’t. I didn’t actually get a single person who was interested in buying, but if I did, I would just call up a sales person at the company and send them that lead (maybe ask for a free lunch).

In summary, you can do customer development on any product – even one that’s not yours, and possibly discover business opportunities for yourself! Say hi to me on Twitter @jaysern

Learn more about Customer Development – especially for tech startups here (e-book & paperback) http://www.custdev.com/

“Whole product” is important if you’re going to cross into the mainstream market. This book by Geoffrey Moore is the definitive guide!

Update 1/15/12: Need more proof this works?

Continuing with the meta-idea series, here’s another meta-idea for a business: building a me-too product! That’s a tongue-in-cheek way of saying it, but rest-assured, I’m not exactly joking.

Look around, find a business that is profitable, the larger the company the better (because they slower they will be in reacting to startups). Clearly they’ve figured out a business model that works.

When starting a business 100% from scratch, you have to figure out what’s the right product to build. You have to figure out who your customers are. You have to figure out how to reach them, how to monetize, how to grow, fine-tune the few words that will fit on a Google text ad to make sure people will actually click on it and convert (fine-tuning costs money!)

Well, the existing business has already figured all of that out. You could just watch them from the outset and learn. And iterate your way to being even better. You know Mint.com invested a lot in their UI/UX/design. You could check them out and learn a thing or two that you could use for yourself, without having to invest the same amount of money.

Google wasn’t the first search engine, iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player, and Facebook was not the first social-networking site. Is that enough proof?

Why do fast followers win more often?  It’s pretty simple. First Movers tend to launch without really fully understanding customer problems or the product features that solve those problems. They guess at their business model and then do premature, loud and aggressive Public Relations hype and early company launches and quickly burn through their cash.. This is a great strategy if there’s a bubble occuring in your market or you are going to bet it all on flipping your company for a sale. Otherwise the jury is in. There’s no advantage.

- Why Pioneers Have Arrows In Their Backs, Steve Blank

An even better explanation by the guru Steve Blank: http://steveblank.com/2010/10/04/why-pioneers-are-the-ones-with-the-arrows-in-their-backs/ and over at A Smart Bear by Jason Cohen: http://blog.asmartbear.com/first-competitive-advantage.html