• Subscribe
    1. Discussions
    2. Are your friends and family a good sample for customer...

    Are your friends and family a good sample for customer discoveries?

    Ceylan Ersoy
    1 reply
    Many startup founding teams turn to their immediate circle for the first round of customer discoveries. However, that may not be the most representative sample for such discoveries and could handicap transparent discovery responses. Should your first round of customer discovery be with complete strangers?

    Replies

    Ivan Ralic
    Collabwriting
    Collabwriting
    First thing to understand is the Customer Adoption Curve. You need early adopters in the begining, and 90-95% of people are not. And then you need your F&F to be in your ICP segment which is another 95-100% possiblity they are not. So if you ask me it's close to impossible to have your initial user base in you F&F circle. You can ask them for opinion, but should never be discouraged or (even worse) encouraged by it. You should always go out of your comfort zone and straight to your ideal customer segment. So instead of asking them for their opinion ask them for the recommendation. Instead of: "do you like this product" Do the: "I'm building a solution to solve this problem for that group of people, do you know anyone how might need it?"
    Share