The U-Haul Playbook

In the last month I’ve met three founders who all had one thing in common:

They moved to wherever their customers are.

Call it a growth hack. Call them crazy for investing so much of their personal lives into customer discovery.

But you know what they all have in common?

They know more about their customers than anyone else in their category. And they’re growing, fast.

Here’s a short story.

I recently attended Endeavor’s National Selection Panel, where six founders went through a series of interviews for a chance to gain access to the national Endeavor network. It’s a prestigious program yet somewhat underground as it doesn’t have nearly the visibility as TechStars.

One of the interviews was with a mid-20s founder (we’ll talk about age and its relevancy later). As part of his customer research for a manufactured home insurance product he was building, he chose to move into a mobile home for one year, thinking it would be the fastest and most comprehensive way for him to learn about his primary customer’s needs.

He was right. The company is growing fast and just closed a $13M Series A round.

At first it sounds obsessive. Is moving necessary? Of course not. Plenty of companies have been built where founders are obsessed about the problem and the customer.

So why am I offering you this playbook for consideration?

Customer discovery is the most important activity for a startup founder who is in pre-market phase, MVP phase or seed stage. Spoiler alert: customer discovery really never ends. But at the early stages, your growth is dependent on your ability to solve the right problem for your customer.

Learning about your market requires an open mind and curiosity. You must be obsessed about solving the right problems. You need to ask the right questions, not just the ones that give you the answer you want.

Not everyone who founds a company does so at the age of 26. (And yes, what was also common among all three founders was their age: sub 30).

The point of this playbook is to emphasize that understanding your customers is the most important thing you should be doing in the 0 → 1 phase. You need to know what problems you’re solving and for whom.

This is why subject matter experts (SMEs) can make great founders. Professionals who have been in a market for 20+ years very clearly know what problems need to be solved. Where they often need guidance is in business strategy, which can come from a business-minded co-founder.

In lieu of being a SME, founders must find other ways to learn as much about their market as possible.

For some, literally being in the vicinity of your customers can be one path to expediting your customer discovery.

If that’s not feasible, here’s the next best thing:

• Dedicate 30% of your time to speaking with your ideal customer profile and anyone who impacts the buyer journey, such as champions, decision makers, and users.

• Make sure you ask the right questions. The Mom Test is a short but informative read on this subject.

• Review insights with your team. They’ll see patterns you may not see as the founder and can help you make decisions and build your roadmap.

Curious how to develop your customer discovery strategy? Or do you have some examples to share of what’s worked for you as a founder? Reach out and let me know!