Customer Development - Never miss the right question.
@SaintSal

Salim Virani, entreprenerd. Creator of Leancamp.

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Why my cofounder is my biggest rival

The classic business and tech duo, or more modern trio of tech, design and growth hacker, are how we think of well-structured founding teams. But my recent experience questions if this type of functional separation is always the best.   … Continue reading

Why the startup rules have changed, and we’re plodding along blindly.

Sometimes you see it coming totally miss it.  We’ve buried our heads in the sand regarding 3 pervasive trends: what people actually want from their mobile device the failing rules of intellectual property (IP) the shift of early adopters to emerging emerged markets I think … Continue reading

Why innovation is alive and well: Peter Thiel vs the Science Fiction masters.

* This is a significantly more tongue-in-cheek rewrite of this post, after I read The Founders Fund Manifesto which seems to have kicked off all this ballyhooing. Getting impatient for the future, for revolutionary technology?  You’re not alone. Peter Thiel, … Continue reading

I am Jack’s wasted opportunity

South East Asia is going through exciting and tremendous changes at the moment, even in Laos, one of its poorest countries. There, one of the best ways to rise out of poverty is to learn English, Russian, Korean or Japanese … Continue reading

First, seek to understand.

Whether it’s negotiation, mediation or even international politics, we know it’s important to first seek to understand the other side. When launching a business, we know it makes sense to seek understanding about our customers needs before trying to change … Continue reading

How investors gauge your opportunity – beyond your business model.

I ran an experiment to challenge if the Business Model Canvas actually enables founders to communicate their business models more succinctly. At Leancamp Dublin, I hosted 90-second Business Model Canvas pitches to 4 well-respected Venture Capitalists. We asked the VCs … Continue reading

When should branding become a concern for a startup?

Short version: Think of your brand as two parts: the customers’ expectation at the core, and the surface elements that signal that expectation.  Usually, it’s less wasteful to get the expectation right first (through conversation and low-fi prototypes), then invest … Continue reading

Tips on choosing your customer learning method

Trevor Owens, founder of Lean Startup Machine, recently wrote a great post where he details 3 methods of customer learning: exploration, pitching and concierge.  This is consistent with the principle of Learn, then Confirm, which works beyond entrepreneurship – in science, … Continue reading

Cocktail CustDev – and the risks of over-formalising your interviews

At the early stage of CustDev – Customer Discovery – you’re seeking a commercial opportunity that shows strong market pull. This type of discovery happens much faster with exploratory conversations. This is where most people mess up, missing opportunities because … Continue reading

Essential Customer Development skills – Softball, Anchor and Deflection questions

  Particularly, getting the information you want depends on your skill in controlling the momentum of the conversation. When you know the rough topics you want to cover, you can direct the conversation easily with a few good Softball, Anchor and … Continue reading

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About Salim Virani

I founded Leancamp for people to share practical techniques on getting market traction. Now I help accelerators and entrepreneurship programmes make better founders at Founder Centric.
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