Five Questions To Ask Before Building Anything
Who identifies with the problem you’re solving and wants to own it? Who is in such pain that’s they’d volunteer to engage with you? Who might even pay for your prototype or offer time to develop the solution with you? These ideal target customers can become potential design partners, beta testers, and even a funding source if they are willing to prepay to gain competitive advantage from being your first customers. How do they experience and define their problem? How do they describe their needs in their terms? Why must it be addressed right now? What is the root cause that makes it an imperative, not just a nice-to-have? Why is it urgent to solve the problem? How dire is the consequence of not solving the problem? The more dire the better! Will they derive an order-of-magnitude better outcome from using it? How can it ultimately transform (not just marginally improve) their lives or businesses? How can it become indispensable and eventually irreplaceable to them? Can it embed itself into their success so deeply they can’t imagine life without it — and no competitor could afford to replace it? How does it become a sustainable competitive advantage for them in their market. If your Customer Compass is working, these questions won’t just guide. They’ll spark new ones as your understanding dynamically evolves. And you’ll instinctively know how to answer these questions because you’ve already begun living inside your customer’s world.
