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Rule of thumb: If they haven't looked for ways of solving it already, they're not going to look for (or buy) yours.
"Where does the money come from?" Good question. This isn't something you would necessarily ask a consumer (though you might), but in a B2B context it’s a must-ask. It leads to a conversation about whose budget the purchase will come from and who else within their company holds the power to torpedo the deal.
if you’re onto something interesting and treating people well, your leads will quickly multiply via intros.
Deciding what to build is your job.
The questions to ask are about your customers’ lives: their problems, cares, constraints, and goals. You humbly and honestly gather as much information about them as you can and then take your own visionary leap to a solution.
boils down to this: you aren’t allowed to tell them what their problem is, and in return, they aren’t allowed to tell you what to build. They own the problem, you own the solution.
With the exception of industry experts who have built very similar businesses, opinions are worthless. You want facts and commitments, not compliments.
Remember though: you don’t need to end up with what you wanted to hear in order to have a good conversation. You just need to get to the truth.
While using generics, people describe themselves as who they want to be, not who they actually are. You need to get specific to bring out the edge cases.
You’ve revealed your ego
Long story short, that person is a complainer, not a customer.
Startups are about focusing and executing on a single, scalable idea rather than jumping on every good one which crosses your desk.
When you hear a request, it’s your job to understand the motivations which led to it. You do that by digging around the question to find the root cause. Why do they bother doing it this way? Why do they want the feature? How are they currently coping without the feature? Dig.
Once someone detects that your ego is on the line, they’ll give you fluffy mis-truths and extra compliments. Disregard that data and use The Mom Test to re-focus on the person, their life, and their goals. People rarely lie about specific stuff that’s already happened, regardless of your ego.
Rule of thumb: If you’ve mentioned your idea, people will try to protect your feelings.
Once you start talking about your idea, they stop talking about their problems.
Rule of thumb: The more you’re talking, the worse you’re doing.
The Mom Test and start trying to ask non-biasing questions,
You can tell it’s an important question when the answer to it could completely change (or disprove) your business.
Every time you talk to someone, you should be asking a question which has the potential to completely destroy your currently imagined business.
But really, that person’s opinion doesn’t matter. They have no idea if the business is going to work. Only the market knows.
You’re searching for the truth, not trying to be right. And you want to do it as quickly and cheaply as possible. Learning that your beliefs are wrong is frustrating, but it’s progress. It’s bringing you ever closer to the truth of a real problem and a good market.
In this context, “best” means learning, not selling. If
The classic error in response to a lukewarm signal is to “up your game” and pitch them until they say something nice. Unless they’re holding a check, the only thing to gain from “convincing” them are false positives. You’re not here to collect compliments; you’re trying to learn the truth. Their lukewarm response already gave you that.
Rule of thumb: There’s more reliable information in a “meh” than a “Wow!” You can’t build a business on a lukewarm response.
Always pre-plan the 3 most important things you want to learn from any given type of person.
Knowing your list allows you to take better advantage of serendipitous encounters. Instead of running into that dream customer and asking to exchange business cards so you can “grab a coffee” (exactly like everyone else), you can just pop off your most important question. And that goes a long way toward Keeping it Casual.
The structure of separate problem/solution/sales conversations is critical for avoiding bias, but it’s important to realise that the first one doesn’t actually need to be a meeting.
Being too formal is a crutch we use to deal with an admittedly ambiguous and awkward situation. Instead of leaving wiggle room for the unexpected, everything becomes a process.
Rule of thumb: If it feels like they’re doing you a favour by talking to you, it’s probably too formal.
It only takes 5 minutes to learn whether a problem exists and is important. Learning how someone currently achieves a certain goal or solves a problem is also quick.
You'll make progress a lot faster if you’re able to leave your idea out of it for as long as possible.
When you fail to push for advancement, you end up with zombie leads: potential customers (or investors) who keep taking meetings with you and saying nice things, but who never seem to cut a check. It's like your startup has been friend-zoned. Thankfully, you caused it, and that means you can fix it. It's a consequence of being clingy and fearing rejection. By giving them a clear chance to either commit or reject us, we get out of the friend-zone and can identify the real leads.
Commitment — They are showing they’re serious by giving up something they value such as time, reputation, or money. Advancement — They are moving to the next step of your real-world funnel and getting closer to a sale.
Rule of thumb: “Customers” who keep being friendly but aren’t ever going to buy are a particularly dangerous source of mixed signals.
A meeting has succeeded when it ends with a commitment to advance to the next step. But you have to force this resolution or the meetings drift along in la-la-land while performing their ancient duty: wasting everyone’s time.
The real failure is listed above as #2: not even asking. I never consider rejection to be a real failure. But not asking certainly is.
Rule of thumb: If you don’t know what happens next after a product or sales meeting, the meeting was pointless.
Commitment can be cash, but doesn’t have to be. Think of it in terms of currency—what are they giving up for you? A compliment costs them nothing, so it’s worth nothing and carries no data. The major currencies are time, reputation risk, and cash.
Rule of thumb: The more they’re giving up, the more seriously you can take their kind words.
Rule of thumb: It’s not a real lead until you’ve given them a concrete chance to reject you.
Steve Blank calls them earlyvangelists (early evangelists). In the enterprise software world, they are the people who: Have the problem Know they have the problem Have the budget to solve the problem Have already cobbled together their own makeshift solution
gtmhub
Secondly, whenever you see the deep emotion, do your utmost to keep that person close. They are the rare, precious fan who will get you through the hard times and turn into your first sale.
Rule of thumb: In early stage sales, the real goal is learning. Revenue is just a side-effect.
problems. By taking an interest in the problems and minutia of their day, you’re already being more interesting than 99% of the people they’ve ever met. Rule of thumb: If it’s not a formal meeting, you don’t need to make excuses about why you’re there or even mention that you’re starting a business. Just have a good conversation.
Paul Graham recommends a generic launch for the same purposes. Get your product out there, see who seems to like it most, and then reach out to those users. This is starting to bring the customers to you instead of going to them, but still involves sending a mostly cold email.
How can you plant a flag your customers can see? What can you offer them that will make them want to talk to you?
Organise meetups For marginally more effort than attending an event, you can organise your own and benefit from being the centre of attention.
Teaching is under-valued as both a learning and selling tool. Let's say you're making better project management software. In that case, you probably have both expertise and a strongly held opinion about how things could be better. That’s the magic combination for being an effective teacher. Spend the time to teach. You'll find chances at conferences, workshops, through online videos, blogging, or doing free consulting or office hours. You'll refine your message, get in touch with a room full of potential customers who take you seriously, and
Warm intros are the goal. Conversations are infinitely easier when you get an intro through a mutual friend that establishes
