- Nov 21, 2023
- 1 min read

From Zero to Hero: How Conversations with Customers Can Save Your Startup

An alarming 68% of startups fail due to no market need. Sobering, but often avoidable simply by talking to customers first.

Early customer conversations help you fail fast and cheap, rather than wasting months building something no one wants. It's easier to tweak a minimally viable product than design the perfect solution upfront. Apple is renowned for prototyping early versions of products and improving iteratively per user feedback.

But when and how do you start engaging customers? ASAP and strategically.

First understand your assumptions about your target customer’s problems and desired solutions. Then craft a discussion guide to probe customer needs across:

• Core problems they face

• Existing solutions they use

• Their hypothetical ideal solution

Capture key customer quotes and themes. Do problems link back to your assumptions or are the problems different than envisioned? Look for patterns across multiple customer conversations vs one-off opinions.

As you ready an MVP, run concepts by engaged customers to pressure-test messaging and positioning. Set up an onboarding process that captures feedback from early adopters to uncover points of friction.

Making customer conversations an ongoing habit will lead to critical mid-flight corrections, ensuring you build what customers will actually pay for. Remember Instagram launching as a check-in app and Twitter as an SMS service? By continually listening to users both pre and post-launch, startups can evolve from risky guesses into customer-validated businesses.

So rather than crossing your fingers your startup will hit a home run, let customers guide your innovation through continual conversation. That’s how you build an empire 💪