as you know you use the customer
interview
to test the business model canvas
assumptions
you're making especially on the right
side of the canvas and
in the center and we'll talk today about
that center portion specifically testing
your
value proposition hypotheses hi i'm
steve morris and i use this StartupSOS
channel to provide practical how-to
advice
for first-time entrepreneurs. so how do
you get started with your customer
interview?
well in this video we'll go through some
starter questions
for that process. but it's good to keep
in mind that these are just
starter questions the whole idea in the
customer interview
is to ask open-ended questions, listen
more than you talk, and then ask
follow-up probing questions because
you're really trying to understand
the customer's point of view and
specifically today we'll talk about the
customer perspective on
the Value Proposition which is what's
the job to be done, what's the pain
they're trying to avoid, and what's the
gain that they're trying to realize. so
it's not a bad idea
to start by just describing here's the
job to be done that we're focused on
is that indeed a job that your
department does and that you're involved
in doing?
hopefully the answer is yes and you can
go on to ask some follow-up questions
like how is this job done today?
in fact to get a little more detail you
might specifically ask
could you just describe the the whole
workflow for the department
and how this job fits into that workflow?
but then how the actual job itself works
step by step
by step? what you would like to do is
understand exactly
how the job is done today using their
current
solution. another angle to try to learn
more about the job to be done
is just to ask overall what are you
trying to accomplish
in getting this job done. well
that's simply again taking a different
angle where you're hoping to learn
a little bit more about what the job is
and maybe start to get into the question
of really why it's important,
which starts to get into really the pain
they're trying to avoid
or the gain that they're trying to
realize. shifting
all the way into questions about the
pain
and the gain you might start with just
an overall gauging question of,
on a scale of one to five, how satisfied
are you
with the way the job is getting done
today or with the solution
that you're using today to get the job
done?
and what what works well
with the current way you're doing it? and
on the other hand what are the problems
what doesn't work so well with the
way
you're doing it today again with the
solution that you're using today
and and specifically what what are you
missing out on i mean what
what is the the the pain the negative
involved in the way you do it
today and or or what's the gain - what's
the benefit that you really should be
able to
to attain in getting this job done
better and you're just not fully
realizing? again you're just coming up
with different ways
of trying to ask about the pain
and the gain so you really understand
what is it that makes this job
important. another angle to try is to ask
hey
you you realize there are some problems
with the current approach
what's preventing you from addressing
those today and making those better?
you're kind of giving the person
permission to complain here.
maybe complain about the vendor maybe
their current vendor just
has heard what the issues are and and
hasn't fixed them
or maybe there are management
barriers to
doing the right things to fixing the
problems or funding barriers.
you can potentially learn a lot by
letting the person complain.
about what's in the way now what
really is the problem?
let them complain a little bit and you
could learn a lot
another way to learn more is to ask the
person about their
ideas how would they do this better. what
would they like to see
changed or if they could wave a magic
wand
and come up with the perfect solution?
what would it look like?
people tend to like to talk about their
ideas
so fine ask them about their ideas
for what a better solution would look
like! another way to learn more is to
just
ask about what other solutions have
they tried to get this job done
and if they have tried some different
solutions from different vendors
what did they like about those different
solutions and
what did they not like? what didn't work
so well?
are they still actively looking for a
better solution? are they actually so
motivated that they're really looking
for a better way to get
this job done or are they not really
quite that motivated - it's just not
really a big enough deal given
everything else they're dealing with
they're not really actively looking
because it's just not really quite
important enough. so there are some ideas
on questions that you can start with
in doing your customer interview to
really probe value
proposition but remember they're just
starters
you get to ask the follow-up probing
questions so that you really
understand where the customer is coming
from. now we're putting together
a very complete list of customer
interview questions
not just for the value proposition but
for several other parts of the canvas
you can get on the list to get that once
it's done
through the link that's in the notes so
check that out
and of course we have more coming up in
this series
so if you haven't yet subscribed please
do that and click the notification bell
so you know when those
future videos are available and if this
was helpful please click the like and
share it
if you have any questions or comments
please leave a comment
and of course the entire series on
testing your business model canvas is
available in the link to the playlist
right below me
that's it for now thank you very much
for watching