How and why should a product hold CustDev?

What is CustDev?

CustDev (full. Customer Development) is a way to get user feedback. The data collected is used to test an idea or prototype of a future or existing product with potential consumers. Behind a complex term lies a simple point: this is communication with a future or current audience, the identification of its needs.

CustDev is a qualitative, not a quantitative tool, that is, the collected data (results) are considered as ideas and hypotheses that are subsequently tested by quantitative experiments (for example, surveys or test runs with analytics).

Customer Development specialists themselves evaluate the method as a study of the audience, during which it is possible to find information about the current needs of the user, his anxieties, etc.

Why spend?

CustDev is conducted to study the audience, because without data on problems and desires of consumers, product development turns into walking in a minefield. The tool is used to save resources, because often they write the code first, then they understand the needs of customers and then rework everything in accordance with them. And so it can be an infinite number of times, which is more expensive than a preliminary analysis and product creation immediately for the specific needs of the target audience.

For example, there is a company that is developing educational applications. Let’s say the team planned to create a product for guitarists and was guided by a stereotype: men learn to play a musical instrument to impress women. After the survey, it turned out that many do it for self-development and distraction from routine.

Many beginning developers have a problem – when designing and implementing a new product, they are guided by their own feelings and views. Yes, sometimes it works, because your own opinion coincides with the majority opinion. But why take the risk and then redo everything, if there is an opportunity to identify needs immediately?

Experienced leaders highlight another plus of castdev – team involvement in the work. When people communicate with future consumers, they begin to understand (if this was not the case before) what they are doing, for what, and for whom. Motivation is growing, efficiency is increasing and goals are achieved more quickly.

How to organize?

Start CustDev with audience segmentation. The usual division of the audience according to socio-demographic characteristics does not work here, therefore, they use role-based characteristics: for example, people who have a hobby to play the guitar in their free time (a 35-40 year old man from Moscow is not our case). There are no restrictions on the number of segments: the more the better.

Next, divide the segments by priority. You can use the following factors:

• reach – can you find them;
• volume – how many people can be in this segment;
• satisfaction – the extent to which your decision will help them.

Work with the highest priority segments first. Think about how you will find representatives of the selected segments? The easiest option is among your friends (quickly and inexpensively). For large-scale research, advertising tools are suitable for attracting a lot of target audience.

When users are found, arrange for an interview. The best option is a personal conversation, but if this is not possible, a video call or correspondence in the messenger is suitable. Experts recommend talking with at least 8 representatives of each segment.

But remember, this is not a job interview. The interview should take place in a friendly conversation format, preferably in an informal setting. Communicate exclusively about the product is not worth it, at the same time talk on abstract topics (for example, your favorite dishes or establishments in your city).

Rules for CustDev

For good results, follow a couple of important rules. First, do not ask people about the future. Your task is to learn about past experiences. In addition, very often people answer untruthful questions.

Bad questions:

• Will you pay for a subscription service to be able to rent a car at any time?
• How often would you use the extra refueling feature on a long trip?

Good questions:

• How do you usually book cars? Have you been looking for any special services?
• When was the last time you rented a car? Remember the experience of using the service?

Questions are prepared in advance so that the interview turns out to be of high quality and valuable. Allocate no more than 2-3 minutes for one answer, and the whole conversation should be no more than 15-30 minutes, otherwise it will take a lot of time to work out the entire volume.

Do not be afraid to clarify the thoughts of the respondent in order to accurately understand their essence. There is an unwritten rule of five “why”, which helps to get as much valuable information from a person as possible.

Secondly, you can’t sell a product during an interview. Some begin to convince people that their tool is better than competitors and they need to use it first. Build questions so that the person himself tells why he wants to use your product. The answers to them are good points of growth and improvement.

Record conversations, for example, on a voice recorder. Often the details of the interview “fly out” of the head and the person begins to think out some information. Its invented options may not correspond to reality, which negatively affects the final result.

And the last rule – try to plunge into the environment of a potential user. For example, the head of RnD64 (the company is developing guitars) is fond of playing the instrument himself, has been trained, etc. This helped to come up with catchy questions, the answers to which were valuable for product development.

What is important to consider?

Some more important points for carrying out Customer Development:

• Define a goal in advance. If you don’t understand what you expect from interviews with the target audience, then the custom will not give any results. The goal can be any: “understand the problems of people at a certain step”, “understand what the consumer appreciates the product for”, etc.
• Do not argue with the respondent. Even if you are sure of his wrongness or that he is not telling the truth. Just write down the analysis later.
• Do not explain anything to the interlocutor unless he asks for it. A common mistake of a specialist is that he begins to tell what is right and how, and forgets about the main task – to collect data on the current view of a person. Explain something only after receiving a direct question.
• “Thank”. More often than not, thank your interlocutor for the answers in order to create a friendly atmosphere and arrange him for more complete and sincere answers.
• All questions should be approximately the same. This is necessary to get answers to the same topics for determining insights during analysis.

Considering the rules and recommendations, you will get a good interview with all the respondents: they will be held at ease, and you will receive valuable information for further work on the product.

Example table based on CustDev results

Proper interviewing is half the battle. Information must not only be collected, but also correctly formatted for completeness of further analysis. We suggest using a special table.

Important questions are recorded on the top line, then answers are written opposite each respondent. For ease of analysis and determination of insights, temporary filters and summary tables are used.

There is also a second tab – “Notes and Insights”, in fact, what are we striving for according to the results of the analysis.

For example, after the analysis, they came to the conclusion that users choose full-time education, because they value live communication, it gives them more positive emotions. And then we refer to information from an interview with a particular person. And so it turns out to build theories and hypotheses, which are then verified by quantitative tools.

Prior to testing hypotheses and theories, prioritize them. So you understand what should be checked first. To do this, invite the target audience to take surveys and highlight the most important problems (build them from the insights received).

We have prepared for readers table example: “Touch” it, look at the arrangement, you can save it to yourself and use it as a template in the future.

When to do?

We learned how to conduct CustDev and analyze the data. But when to do it best? Experienced product managers believe that the first custom data should be done before the development of the first prototype.

Thanks to this, even before the start of development, you will get rid of misconceptions and identify the most important hypotheses around which the implementation of a new product should be organized. And sometimes the results show that the proposed idea is not interesting to anyone, therefore, it will not be in demand. There is nothing to worry about! It would be much more offensive to spend millions of budgets on development, and then discover a lack of demand for the product.

After the start of development and even after launching on the mass market, the need for Customer Development does not disappear. The tool is used before implementing additional solutions and functions. It helps to determine whether it is worth implementing a new feature, whether it will receive demand among an active audience.

As you can see, custom is a really useful tool that helps to save huge sums on the development of unnecessary products for anyone. The high popularity is explained by the simplicity of the work: to conduct interviews with the target audience, special equipment and other large expenses are not needed.

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