How do you approach validation when the users of your product and the customers are different?
For context, I’m building a social impact start up focused on an acute problem for low-income families. We have piloted the product with no code tools and have had 20 users plus 80+ waitlist sign ups in a few weeks.
However, our customers will be businesses that benefit from the increase spend of these families at their stores. How would you go about validating the business model when you know the users want it, but not sure for customers? For early sales conversations, do you always show a prototype? Or do you just verbally pitch the product and get feedback on willingness to pay?
Both. You do customer all the discovery and validation with both. Ultimately, you want to validate all sides of any experimental product or business model, not just your customers and users.
“Product market fit” is not the only fit you want to validate. Or to put it another way, validating your customer segment is only the beginning. It’s the one you hear about the most because it’s the best place to start, and most people don’t even get past this point.
You want to validate the whole business model. And more! Things like “founder model fit” can make or break a startup.
Where to start? Riskiest assumptions first. Swallow the frog. Ask the questions that scare you the most.
Check out the winning presentations from the International Business Model Competition on YouTube. They sometimes demonstrate clearly how they methodically validated each of the 9 blocks on the business model canvas. I recommend watching the videos from SwineTech and Owlet.