Archive for category Prototype
Getting Voice of the Customer for Web design
If you only had a few questions to ask a client prior to making a recommendation for their website what would you ask?
I recently found myself in this situation. I am assisting a group of people in creating their new website by developing the design document. Their business has multiple divisions and each division in located in a different part of the Dallas Metroplex. Furthermore, while they have a commonality that brings them together (the company), each division owner has a certain autonomy that allows them to do what they want.
Given a short amount of time and a lot of people to interview, what questions would I ask? I hit upon just a few:
- What is the mission statement of the organization?
- What is your mission statement as it fits into this organization?
- Who is your audience?
- How do you use the web site, and how would you like to use it?
- What would you like to see on a web site?
- Who will maintain it?
Very simple questions. The first few questions puts me in the context and mindset of this particular person. Questions four and five get into the type of product they want to see. Finally, question six really tells me how interactive they will be with the web site. Combined, this tells me how they see the web site as an extension of themselves.
The answers were very surprising.
I could ask a lot more questions and will probably follow up with them. The point of this exercise is to get started and understand the customer and their fundamental approach. As any company developing a new product, you need to get into the mind of the customer get the voice of the customer in your design. This is one technique I am using now to hear their voice.
When customers know the how and not the what
When designing a new product you should listen to your customers.? This is the common wisdom today which I agree with 100%. The challenge is that when you question your customers about a potential new product you run into a couple of different situations that can make the listening experience painful:
- The customer cannot articulate the problem but says there is a problem.
- The customer tells you how to improve or how to solve the problem but they never tell you what the problem is.
Before I tackle this issue I think about why the customer hired me. Usually it falls into one of these three categories:
- They do not know how to solve the problem.
- They do know how, but you do it better.
- They do know how, but they have more pressing issues and need you to do it for them.
If the customer cannot articulate the problem I question them about time, cost, return of value, and is it meeting their goals. Usually it is one of those four.? If not, I ask them why they think it is a problem. The dialogue starts opening up the possibilities and when you understand the root cause, then you can identify goals that can be addressed with the development process.
If the customer is busy telling you how the problem can be solved then the best approach is to just let them get that off their mind. Take copious notes. If the customer is really knowledgable they may be making your job very easy and they just need your expertise in executing successfully.
Otherwise you may have to go back and explore the basic problem itself. Sometimes the customer knows how to solve the problem, but does not really know what the problem is. In other words, they want in an improvement. Often this is because someone else told them they needed an improvement but once again, they could not offer any ideas.
That is your job to get this out of them.? Realizing that, you can question the customer and get their input on the situation. This may lead to the solution. Otherwise, you might have to question other stakeholders (usually you do anyway), and this in turn will lead to the solution.
Recognizing these challenges is key to successfully designing a product with customer input.? All entrepreneurs go through multiple iterations of designing and redesigning their products and services. The problem entrepreneurs face is that customers often feel this is the best opportunity to dictate the solution which often leads to a lot of How without understanding the What. To overcome these challenges, do deep dive questions. Explore the problem itself, and get the input of the customer. With this input, you can design a better product that will appeal to more than just that one customer.
Shark Tank or License Tank?
Which is a better deal for your business?
Offer 1: $35,000, the investor owns 100% of your business, and you get a 2% royalty.
Or
Offer 2: $50,000, the investor owns 51% of your business.
It depends on your belief on whether you will be successful or not with your own business or you should do a licensing deal. Offer 1 was a licensing deal.
Last night I watched about five minutes of an ABC show called Shark Tank. A regular group of investors review pitches from entrepreneurs and they offer a deal right there. Whether or not they consummate a deal depends on negotiations later but the deal offers are in good faith.
The owner of turbobasters.com was pitching her business. You can visit the web site to see it. She was given the two offers. She chose offer #1 because the investor had the network to get her product sold. 2% of something was better to her than 49% of nothing.
I stopped watching. Instead, I started doing my own little due diligence on the internet, visiting her website, texasstartups.com, and the show website.
A few things came up:
1. She does not have a working prototype. All she has are some drawings and a good idea. No business plan, or marketing plan. However, she may have mentioned that on the show.
2. The show does not do any business due diligence; only background checks.
3. Evidently other inventors get on there and instead get an offer to license their product.
As one poster put it succinctly on the texasstartupblog.com: some of these people have no business running a business…they are much better off licensing their product. In this case, the lady took the right deal between the two, if it really was a license.
As for my thoughts on the show; I have not watched enough of it. I do wan to point out one idea: This is on TV so it is supposed to be entertainment and there is a big difference between that and what investors do make sure they make a solid deal.
Quick note:
Offer 2 valued the business at $98,000. Offer 1 said the business was worthless and it was just the idea that was valuable. Big difference.
Graphing to find new products
Seth Godin writes today about using graphs to help predict new products. Visit his blog entry Bandwidth-sync correlation that is worth thinking about.
The point is that if you create two axes of qualitative or quantitative aspects of a situation and then place items on that graph where they fall with regards to those two aspects, you can start to see relationships and gaps in the product offering. Furthermore, you can see which products may work better and which may be poor performers.
To create these graphs, you can poll your customers on the two qualities of the products and then place those products where they fall. Ultimately, this is a tool that can be used to create more effective products.