Uncertainty is the order of the day for a startup. Questions like:
- Will customers buy what we produce?
- Will customers buy our service?
- How many customers are there?
- What will they pay?
- What value do they put on our service or product?
Value is creating benefit for the customer; in a startup the customer is unknown; learn who the customer is; learn what they value in what you do.
Get answers by experimenting, by working out hypotheses. Two key hypotheses for the startup are the value hypothesis and the growth hypothesis.
The Value Hypothesis
What evidence from what changes will show what value the customer of the product or service is getting? How does the behaviour of the customer change as the product or service changes?
The mechanism of split testing can be used here: delivering one version of a product to one set of customers and delivering another version to another set and monitoring the different behaviours, if any, of the customers.
The Growth Hypothesis
This hypothesis is used to test how take-up of the product or service spreads. What actions result in more people engaging with the product or service. Is referral by current customers significant in getting more customers? What channels are more effective than others? As with the value hypothesis, split testing has a role here.
Lean and Agile - in organisations 