Using Customer Research to Build Your Product
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The document discusses using customer development to build a SaaS product. It recommends validating hypotheses by talking directly to customers to understand problems rather than assuming ideas. Customer development should happen early at the idea stage and ongoing to prioritize features. When doing customer development, meet with users in person, take notes, and ask questions about their companies, problems, and current solutions to understand their needs. Customer development is important for finding the right problems to solve rather than just building proposed solutions.
Using Customer Research to Build Your Product
- 1. Using Customer Development to Build Your SaaS Product Arpit Rai Principal Product Manager @ ThoughtSpot | ex VP Products, WebEngage
- 2. About Me ● Career ○ Currently Principal Product Manager at ThoughtSpot ○ Previously VP Products at WebEngage, 1st product hire at BrowserStack ○ Experience in SaaS only. No B2C experience ○ SaaS experience at different stages ■ WebEngage (3-3-2-2-2) ■ BrowserStack (3-3-2-2-2) ■ ThoughtSpot ($100M+ ARR) ● Blog ○ Thoughts on product and growth in SaaS: https://www.medium.com/@arpitrai
- 3. Agenda 1. The WebEngage story 2. What is customer development & Why do you need it? 3. When do you do customer development? 4. How do you do customer development? 5. Summary
- 5. The Product 2015-2016: Basic marketing automation product for B2C companies Users Email Push Notifications SMS In-app Messages
- 6. The Problem Tons of competitors in the marketing automation space How do you differentiate?
- 7. Customer development Intelligent segments Engage users through unique segments Engage users through more detailed segments Reach users smartly
- 8. Output of customer development Added to wishlist Purchased in next 30 days? Do nothing Yes No Send email User reachable on email? Yes No User reachable on mobile?
- 9. Validation from customers We were able to fit majority of their use cases Customers came back with more use cases we had not thought of!
- 10. WebEngage’s Biggest USP from 2016-18: Journey Designer
- 12. What customer development is not ❌ It’s not asking customers what they want and building it ❌ It’s not running surveys
- 13. What customer development is ✅ Validate your hypothesis so you figure out the right problem to solve ✅ Figure out the right problems to solve
- 14. Why do you need to do customer development? Build something that has a real chance of success Solutions are easy. Figuring out the right problem to solve is not. Ideas are NOT overrated! Eg. BrowserStack: 0 to <$XX M in 5 years. First 2 weeks only research & talking to people. They didn’t realize it but they were doing customer development In SaaS, you’re not always the user of your product as compared to B2C Eg. WebEngage: I worked on a SaaS product for B2C companies. I have never worked in a B2C company!
- 15. Why do you need to do customer development? Quantitative analysis only indicates where the problem exists. Doesn’t answer why the problem exists Use qualitative analysis / customer development to figure out your solution
- 16. When do you do customer development?
- 17. When do you do customer development Idea Stage: What should you even build? Post-PMF & Beyond: What are the next set of features you should build?
- 18. When do you do customer development Prioritize Problems Design Solution Build Solution Test Launch Research & Define Problems Do customer development!
- 19. How do you do customer development?
- 20. How do you do customer development Step 1: Start with a hypothesis you’re trying to validate / Topic on which you want more information Step 2: Identify your users. Target segments (region, industry etc.), Existing + Others (LinkedIn, Twitter…) Step 3: Set up your meeting. Meet them in person. Speak to them on the phone. No surveys. No emails. Step 4: Take notes in meeting, summarize, devise plan of action
- 21. Questions you can ask 1. About the company (what it does, industry, number of employees) 2. About the person (role, responsibilities at work etc.) 3. What is the problem they’re facing (or understand in detail the problem you’re trying to solve if you already have an idea / know a problem) 4. The last time they faced the problem(s) and how often do they face it? 5. How does this problem impact their business or how much time and money does this problem cost their company? 6. How are they currently solving the problem? 7. Problems with their current solution
- 22. Summary
- 23. Summary ● Solutions are easy. Figuring out the right problem to solve is not. ● You need customer development whether you’re starting up or in the growth stage or you have an established product ● Keep your biases aside when you do customer development
- 24. Questions? Twitter: @arpitrai | Medium: www.medium.com/@arpitrai | Email: arpitrai@gmail.com