kissinsights customer development tactics

Warning: This Talk Contains Actual Tactics

KISSinsights Case Study

Cindy AlvarezWeb 2.0 Expo • May 3, 2010

Where Do I Start?

• Get a Hypothesis (and write it down)

• 2-Pronged Validation• Figure Out What You Want to

Learn• Iterate on Your Interview• Just Build It• What will it take for someone to

pay you $?

Get A Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that ____________ people have a problem doing ____________.

Hypothesis for KISSinsights

My hypothesis is that product manager type people have a problem doing fast/effective/frequent customer research.

The 2 Big Questions

Is this a recognizable, interesting pain?

Where exactly is the pain?

2-Pronged Validation

BUY NOW

splash page

survey

“so, tell me about how you do _____...”

Interviews Are Features, Too

PLAN

DOASSESS

What Should You Be Learning?

• What are they doing now? (This is YOUR COMPETITION.)

• What are other tools leaving on the table?

• Who is involved?• How frequent / severe is the pain?• Whatever else your customer thinks

is IMPORTANT enough to COMPLAIN about

The customer is the expert, you’re just a notetaker.

If you could wave a magic wand, what would you be able to do?”

“

Iterating on the Interview

•What was interesting / surprising?

•Kill the yes/no questions•Don’t agree with the customer

•Silence is good•Validate or contradict

Learnings That Became KISSinsights

• What are they doing now? Mostly going without customer research.

• What are other tools leaving on the table? Privacy, targeting controls.

• Who is involved? Product manager, reluctant developer.

• How frequent / severe is the pain? Constant - “whenever we make decisions on what to build”

• IMPORTANT enough to COMPLAIN? Hate writing, don’t know where to start, hate having to ask developer to change site

The Numbers

• ~20 interviews (15-20 minute phone calls)

• 3 scrappy user tests (15-20 minute face-to-face with paper prototypes)

• 2 splash pages (Facebook Ads, StumbleUpon traffic)

• Hacky MVP on KISSmetrics.com• 8 “alpha testers”

Just Build It

“It’s a very ‘M’ MVP.” - Cindy Alvarez, to Hiten Shah

Internal MVP: 2 daysPublic MVP: 2 months1400+ signups (so far)

What Does It Take to Get Paid?

InterestInstallation

GratificationValue

Pay

Thank You!

@KISSmetrics @cindyalvarez