Last week I was able to do customer deep dives for several technical Indie Hackers. Here are the core lessons that apply to many early-stage founders on the road to their first paying customers.
Lesson One: Look at Problems Through Your Customer's Eyes
Before someone becomes a customer they have to know that we understand who they are, what problems they are going through, and what they want after the problem goes away. No one buys a hammer to put it in the toolbox. They buy a hammer so they can hang a painting in the living room.
This Mad Eye Moody framework is to identify the person you’re speaking to, clearly define the pain they’re going through, then present what life is like after the solution is implemented — their dream outcome.
When we put ourselves in our customers' world we’ll use different language to describe what problems they're experiencing. Rather than getting right to the ‘how’ which are the features of our product, we’ll first make clear the ‘who’ our audience is and ‘what’ pain they are looking to solve.
That’s how they’ll know they’re in the right place.
Lesson Two: Don't Reinvent the Wheel — Learn From Your Peers
One strategy I use is looking at what my peers or competitors are doing. This gives us several industry wide perspectives to consider:
First, it validates the existence of a market where customers are already paying to solve the same problem.
Second, it allows us to confirm how customers like to buy. Sometimes our customers don’t buy the way we’d personally like to buy. This lets us learn to reduce friction in the buying process.
Are they used to paying per month?
Do they want a sales rep to walk them through a demo?
Are they used to flat rate or per user pricing?
Do they want to pay online or get an invoice?
There are areas in our business we want to innovate and differentiate but how customers are used to paying is not one of them.
Third, is to provide context to just how large the marketplace really is. There is room for everyone to compete and solve a problem for a certain type of customer.
Just as there are many different mail service providers like MailChimp, Drip, and ConvertKit there's also room for Indie Hackers like Mailforge.io. Each provides a unique benefit for a certain audience. They can all make money at the same time.
The danger is not that competitors exist but that you haven’t reached a point of validating your customers and their problems. Salesforce might be the behemoth CRM but they'll never be the only contender in the CRM space.
Lesson Three: Show Your Credibility to Help Establish Trust
People respond to those they like and trust but use external indicators to help them decide. If you are early in your product or you don’t have customers yet, you can’t share results you don’t have. Instead, share your background and credibility as a person or team.
Did you go to a great school or are you a YC alum?
Were you an early employee at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc.?
Do you have previous experience that you can refer to with name recognition?
Have you contributed/volunteered with a major project in your field?
Have you raised money from a well known VC or sold a company?
Leverage what you have and use it as a springboard to show you are trust worthy. If you’re uncomfortable sharing some of your accomplishments because you’re not used to being your best advocate, think of it as a way to establish a secret handshake with your customers. You have your own bat signal and Gotham needs you.
Lesson Four: Sales Are Your End Goal but Awareness Starts the Buyer’s Journey
Often we are focused on the objective metric of getting sales that we have to moonwalk back to the start of the buyer’s journey.
If sales outcomes were like the Emerald City, we’d all tell Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road. Welcome to Oz. Our customers are on a journey and the sooner we can start a conversation, the more likely they are to go through the buying journey with us.
When we start conversations, we don’t open with 'Hey, buy my stuff' or look at this amazing technical implementation. We start by asking questions to understand who they are and where they are with a problem. Build your own yellow brick road for them where they end up with your product.
Lesson Five: Give Me a Reason to Love You — Find Triggers to Engage With Your Future Customers
An approach I often take when doing outreach is based on what is going on in our customer's world that would be a logical reason to start a conversation.
These triggers serve as openers in a new conversation. By referencing something happening in their world, you show that they are important. That trait makes you stand apart.
Some example triggers you can look for are things like:
Were they interviewed in a magazine, article, webinar, YouTube video, or podcast?
Did they attend an industry-specific conference or meetup recently?
Did they announce a major milestone with funding, key clients, or are now hiring?
Are they actively sharing in an industry specific forum, LinkedIn or Facebook group?
Did they write a book or were quoted in one?
Did they come up in conversation with a mutual respected friend, mentor, or client?
There are also personal triggers that help establish a reason to reach out. Things like your college alma mater, having the same favorite sports teams, same hometown, or they also really like craft beer, Labradoodles, CrossFit, cupcakes, and ironman’s like you do.
One of the common themes in each of these five lessons is that they are not focused on you and your greatness. Rather, they are focused on the customer, the market you serve, and the customer's path to getting their problems resolved.
Curious to know more about finding early customers? I’m in pre-launch for Outbound Olga, a done for you outreach service for busy founders. You can sign up for early access and be the first to get Olga’s B2B Outreach Guide.