Lean customer development
by Cindy Alvarez · first published 2014
93% recommend7% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical, step-by-step guide to interviewing users and validating a product idea before building it; suits founders, product people, and marketers new to customer research, and pairs well with The Mom Test.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Learn how your prospective customers behave, the problems they need to solve, and what frustrates and delights them. These insights may shake your assumptions, but they'll help you reach the "ah-ha!" moments that inspire truly great products. Lean how to: validate or invalidate your hypothesis by talking to the right people, learn how to conduct successful customer interviews play-by-play, detect a customer's behaviors, pain points, and constraints, turn interview insights into Minimum Viable Products to validate what customers will use and buy, and adapt customer development strategies.
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…people will buy, rather than the not-on-target product that they won't. The techniques for this are not hard, and the Lean Startup literature has plenty to get people started. E.g., the Alvarez book on Lean Customer Development: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Customer-Development-Building-Cu... (And this is not to say that people shouldn't obsessively build things that interest them. I like doing that. It's a great way to learn…
on “I wandered off and built an IDE” ↗I strongly recommend cindy alvarez' "lean customer development" which is spot on: http://www.amazon.de/Lean-Customer-Development-Building-Cust... ... In fact the lessons learned from this book are invaluable I'd say. If you want to be serious about product design…
on “Ask HN: How to understand the end user's concerns and needs?” ↗…Christensen - Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction by Chris Sims - Build Better Products by Laura Klein - Capital in the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Picketty - Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez - Impossible to Inevitable by Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin - Grit by Angela Duckworth - Love Sense by Sue Johnson - Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - Working Effectively…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…of amazing how many ideas are framed in terms of a "problem" as though it is divorced from people. A good place to start for building anything that people will want to pay for is Cindy Alvarez's book "Lean Customer Development".
on “How to Come Up with Profitable Business Ideas” ↗1. Contextual design, holzblat How to understand and structure a user's life and environment and what to look for when they are struggling with a problem or using your product. 2. Lean Customer Development, Cindy Alvarez Practical and immediately useful guide to interviewing and talking to users. Read after the Contextual Inquiry book above. If that book teaches what to understand about a user's workflow…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book on modern UI/UX?” ↗Add Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez
on “What skills are most crucial for running small internet companies?” ↗Seconding The Mom Test. It's a fast read too, and the author was on a recent episode of the Indie Hackers podcast. For more of the same, I got a lot out of Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez. Here's a talk from Cindy if you'd like to get to learn more before committing to a book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5hc7sseHbE
on “Ask HN: Books giving practical advice on starting a solo SaaS business?” ↗…will also give you good context for these and related tactics, as well as 'next steps' you can take: Running Lean by Ash Maurya Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research by Tomer Sharon Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy by Cindy Alvarez
on “Ask HN: How to find product focus for your own projects? Freelance PO? Other?” ↗…feedback for you, but if you want to improve your value proposition and your messaging, I can recommend some books in the O'Reilly "Lean" series, specifically Ash Maurya's "Running Lean" and Cindy Alvarez's "Lean Customer Development".
on “Ever Wonder Why You Haven't Built That Groundbreaking Project Yet?” ↗Lean Customer Development by C. Alvarez. Solution Selling by M. Bozworth
on “Ask HN: How to learn sales?” ↗…meh) The Road To Ruin (alright. Interesting even.) Lying For Money (lots of fun!) Great Answers To Tough Interview Questions (what it says on the tin) Traction (good overview of marketing tactics) Lean Customer Development (pretty good) The Mom Test (eye opening) Lean B2B (solid playbook) Principles (instant classic)
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗I think that if you can master the art of Lean Customer Development/Understanding you'll be OK regardless of degree or coding ability. Might be an easier transition than to a coder/engineer, especially given background in marketing. As an engineer pairing with business…
on “Ask HN: I want to transition from marketing to product. Where do I go from here?” ↗I'd strongly recommend checking out the book "Lean Customer Development". Will hold your hand through the entire process of this aspect of it.
on “Ask HN: How do you let people know your project exists?” ↗Very dated thinking. Suggest you read up on Lean Customer Development (for example).
on “Be good-argument-driven, not data-driven” ↗…Ultimately led to a low quality product and then lack of customer I've thrown up a few over the last few years. Just trials to gauge Traction. When nothing pops I bail. There is an awesome book about Lean Customer Development which has loads of good ideas on the traction side. I've also found that potential investors put Traction and Team at the top of their evaluation.
on “Ask HN: Have you launched a failed web business?” ↗