The best way to test whether a product or service is ready for prime time is to release it to the wild. Some people call this a pilot trial or pilot test. Others may call it an alpha or beta trial. Whatever we call it, the idea is the same. … Read More
In the seminal book “The Four Steps to the Epiphany,” Steve Blank introduces the concept of “customer development” ― get out of the building and interview customers. While this is not a new concept ― product people with user-centered design training have always done this ― this is a huge development … Read More
This post originally appeared on Huffington Post. When Steve Blank wrote the book “The Four Steps to the Epiphany,” he brought a sea change in the way technology entrepreneurs do business. Rather than plow ahead with a technology-led process, most entrepreneurs have embraced “customer development.” Getting out of the … Read More
This article first appeared on Xconomy.com. In today’s fast-changing world, new product teams are constantly pushed to do more faster. They need to run fast to keep up with rapidly changing market conditions. Oftentimes it means making decisions about what to invest in with very little information. How can teams … Read More
Product people take note: you now have a fantastic new resource to help you understand the customer and build better products. Giff Constable, a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of Neo, has just launched a new e-book called “Talking to Humans”. This ebook covers the important technique of the detailed … Read More
This is the tenth post in my Customer Research series. Today I read a fantastic post on the Vovici Blog by Jeffrey Henning on monadic price testing. You can read it here. In fact this is such a fantastic blog that if you are interested in customer research at … Read More
I am currently working on a product and service combination where there is a hardware component and an online software component. Predictably, our customers are split between those who go on line and those who don’t. Also predictably, we know vastly more about our on-line customers than our off-line customers. … Read More
This is the ninth post in my Customer Research series. I’ve been dragging my feet on this post because I have imposter complex on primary quantitative research. I learned how to do qualitative research by working shoulder to shoulder with established masters. But I never was formally trained in quantitative … Read More
This is the eighth post in my Customer Research series. What is a beta program? The Wikipedia has the following definition: “Beta” is a nickname for software which has passed the alpha testing stage of development and has been released to users for software testing before its official release. It … Read More
This is the seventh post in my Customer Research series. Usability research can be very costly. There are companies that specialize in doing it the right way, with high end audio/video equipment and multi-stream video editing and compositing integrated into the program. The deliverable is typically an incredibly insightful presentation … Read More