how to get your first 100 customers by being helpful

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How to get your first 100 Customers by being helpful Kevin Dewalt, founder SoHelpful.

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Post on 19-Aug-2015

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How to get your first 100 Customers by being helpful

Kevin Dewalt, founder SoHelpful.

FounderSoHelpful, 3 previous

Angel Investor Collabspot (JFDI), Power Supply (500 Startups), Vericant (???)

Mentor/Advisor 1,000s, mostly Lean Startup

Ruby Programmer

Former VC

kevindewalt.com@kevindewalt

Beijing, China

I hear from startups worldwide… “We can’t FIND customers to DO Customer Development”

“I have paying customers … and they STILL won’t talk to me”

“Nobody reads our blog … or opens our email”

“Kevin…we get it…hypothesize, test, validate. We still aren’t getting traction.”

Why are we all struggling so much to get started?

You ignore 99% of your inbox

and 99.9999% of your ads

Why is it harder than ever?

• Customers are overwhelmed.– Too much noise.– Endless choices. Can’t keep up.– Product bar keeps rising.

• RIGHT things at the WRONG time.– Growth hacking– Product/Market fit– Content Marketing– Design– Elevator pitch

Reality – before you have 100 customers

• Your product will suck• Your messaging will be meaningless• Your team will have huge skill shortages• Your Customer Development will have gaping,

unproven assumptions

So accept it – and it doesn’t matter anyway

A better way to start

1. Pick the market you want to serve. 2. Meet as many of these people as possible.3. Aggressively pursue opportunities to help

them. 4. Use these conversations to get insight. Test

ideas.5. As you develop your solution, prioritize

helping people over all else.

What happens

• Customer development is easier – they TELL you their problems.

• The people you help will evangelize like hell for you. Leads to customers, team, $.

• Prospects will convert to paying customers – for your crappy product – because they trust you.

Seattle Case Studyblog.sohelpful.me/markh/

Summary

If you have < 100 Customers …

STOP trying to get people to pay attention to you – START helping them.

It is a lot easier.

try.sohelpful.me