Achieving and sustaining success in the world of entrepreneurship demands creative problem-solving, which encompasses finding problems, developing creative solutions, and implementing those solutions.
In particular, the opportunity stage of a startup is prone to inefficiencies and stress. The way around this is to be deliberate. Slow down and methodically work through the process.
Whenever we want to design a new product or service, we start by asking, “Who do we hope will make a purchase from us?” Then, we ask, “What is the purchase customer trying to achieve by buying our product or service?” It’s especially important to not make an assumption about who our real customer is until we’ve examined who has influence on the buying decision.
Drilling further down, it’s crucial to think about for whom the purchasing customer may be making the transaction so that someone else can ultimately have the product or service. In such cases, we must consider why the purchase customer would do that for this person. In addition, we will want to reflect on how we might meet those expectations.
In other words, before you start solving problems, you have to decide whose problems you actually need to solve.
Most people think of the customer as the person who pays for a product or service, and technically that’s true. However, just because someone pulls money out of their pocket doesn’t mean that they’re the one making the real decision.
Let’s look at an example. Think about some of your trips wandering up a grocery aisle looking for a breakfast cereal. Have you ever had trouble finding one because of all the choices on the shelves? And this is just when you’re shopping for yourself. Now imagine you’re buying cereal for a picky child. You want to buy something healthy for your daughter, but you also know that if she doesn’t like it, you’ll be throwing away a lot of cereal over the next week. Who is making the real decision in this situation?
Clearly, a cereal brand knows that influencing a child’s interest in their product will affect which cereal their parents buy. So, who’s the real customer of sugary breakfast cereal? Oftentimes it’s not the parent making the purchase, but the child.
Here are key questions to answer when ascertaining the real customer of your product:
- Who might the purchase customer actually be buying this product or service for? Essentially, we’re looking for the “owner” of the problem that we’re attempting to solve.
- Why would the purchase customer want to buy this product or service for the other person? In answering this question, write down everyone that comes to mind.
- How might we help the purchase customer meet the expectations of the other person? Looking over the list, think about who we really have to win over and how best to get their business.
- Who’s the gatekeeper? A gatekeeper is someone who has the most influence on a buying decision — a person who can make or break whether a purchase happens. Usually, we consider the purchase customers and real customers the most when designing a business. Yet in practice, it is often the gatekeepers who must be won over before a product or service can become a reality.
Considering purchase customers, real customers, and gatekeepers in the early stages of business creation can prevent major issues later on when entrepreneurs start putting serious money into their startups. When approaching the buying decision from this perspective, we uncover an entirely new set of customers that are important to not overlook.
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