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10 ways to verify assumptions
I recently blogged about one of the websites I worked on straight out of college, and the lessons I learned about verifying assumptions early on.
Let me give you 5 customer-centric questions and then 5 business-model centric questions. These are all things you should be working on before, or along side, development of your consumer internet product.
1. Who is your product is for?
2. What is the context of your customers’ world?
3. What motivations and values do they have behind their actions?
4. When potential customers see your product, what happens?
5. Do you talk to your customers every day?
6. What is the “core mechanic” (or minimum feature set) of your product?
7. What factors can kill your business model?
8. How do you acquire users? Can you make an existence proof?
9. How do you make money? Can you make an existence proof?
10. What technology do you depend on? Can you prove it can work?
I’ll blog in more detail about each one of these tomorrow.
I just finished Crossing the Chasm – by Geoffrey Moore – which focuses on the transition strategy of tech businesses vying to attract mainstream consumers.
One of the most interesting parts of the book relates really well to your “verifying assumptions” exercise. It is the strategy for attacking a niche market. Moore suggests a narrative writeup for each market, telling a story of how the product solves a problem…along with scores 1-5 for a number of key categories.
These kinds of self-questioning exercises can be painful…but can also yield great ideas or added features. Rather than a project killer – more like a pivot point.
Cheyne Rood
19 Feb 07 at 1:13 pm
Can you explain what this means? “Can you make an existence proof?”
Thanks
Perry
20 Feb 07 at 11:54 am