Customer Discovery

What is School For?

Russ Goerend is a bold and generous leader who designs community-driven experiences for high school students exploring what’s next within the Waukee APEX work-based learning program. This is a powerful episode for educators, students, and parents! Inspired by Stop Stealing Dreams, Connect Dots, and How to get into a famous college with Seth Godin, together we ask, what is school for? This is a simple, but important question that has so many answers!

As we embark on 2024, how might we continue to blur lines between the classroom and community? What are more side doors we can open today, that accelerate those ready to build tomorrow? Enjoy!

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By Ben McDougal, ago

Let’s Get Phygital

Sachin Sehgal found lasting purpose by starting his first business at the University of Iowa. Along with all that is multimedia marketing, Sachin is building Elevate and Bond Branding as he continues to explore connections between our physical and digital worlds.

You’ll love these shared wavelengths on customer discovery, content creation, value-based sales, balancing personal brands, activating phygital concepts, when to quit, spirit animals, truth-based prompt engineering with AI, collectability with web3 technologies, and playing long-term games with long-term people. As Sachin reminds us, when life gives us stories, tell them.

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By Ben McDougal, ago

Echos

The echo of an idea is always fading.

How can we extend ideation long enough to activate early moves, blow through barriers, and maintain lasting enrollment? This is clearly a loaded question. Much goes into enabling ideas into reality and the rate of an idea’s degradation depends on a million factors, but let’s sip on the artistry of pushing without being pushy.

As seen in the Ideation and Research chapters of YDNTB, personal reflection is the easiest way to think through the various angles that might make an idea interesting. This private contemplation doesn’t require much skill and we don’t get stuck trying to earn the attention of others. Unfortunately, the ease of your own activity is matched by the hardships that await those who don’t let ideas breathe. This is why stealth mode is precarious and ongoing customer discovery is key.

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Will you spend time or money?

When we share a new idea with someone else, the situation becomes complex. This is the moment we put our idea on a hook. It’s when we push past fear and invite doubt. Connecting dots within such complexity is difficult, takes time, and is never straightforward. Research helps to build confidence and adds clarity to how opportunities are articulated. While this preparation helps guide others through layers of understanding faster, a blend between patience and urgency is required to align interest.

This makes blunt repetition tempting, but ineffective. Whether it’s potential co-founders, mentors, early adopters, or investors, more of the same (without execution) can chase away interest. To avoid potential fading too fast, find different ways to motivate movement.

For a fun visualization, let’s imagine a small pond. If one pebble drops in, the lonely ripple would be obvious, but also fades fast. While it made a splash, it’s soon forgotten. Now, imagine many pebbles being thrown in different ways, all around the pond, and over time. The pond is now alive! The echo of each pebble is magnified and the abundance of rippled collisions leave a more lasting impact.

Like this pond full of pebbles, we can nudge progress long enough to activate action by adding variety into how we introduce and continue to explore an idea. Conversation in different environments, creative analogies, inquisitive questioning, active listening, talking about anything else, releasing reluctance, or getting more people involved are all ways you can keep building without seeming frantic, repetitive, or desperate. This intentional diversity allows different echos of one idea to each feel different, and yet, all bounce in the same direction.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Captive

I was catching a quick nap on a recent flight.

All the sudden, our flight attendant broke the peaceful silence. Not to share a friendly update for passengers, but to rattle off a forced sales pitch for their branded credit card. Ouch.

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Attention is hard to earn.
If you have it, don’t waste it.

Now, let’s imagine an alternate scenario. Instead of an unwanted interruption followed by an impersonal script that makes most think less of the brand treating us like prisoners instead of customers, what if the same offer felt more like a gift? Like a special surprise? Something that makes you feel appreciated!

For example, how would you feel if you were told that you were selected to receive a free adult beverage or tasty snack, paired with the exact same credit card application?

Whether you decided to apply or not, the complementary surprise was just to say thanks for being a valued customer! This personalized presentation would naturally snag the attention of nearby passengers. As word of mouth amplifies interest, similar offers could be made for those willing to complete a credit card application.

That’s just a thought exercise, but we’ve all sat in situations where we were part of a captive audience. Whether by choice or not, there’s a fine line and a big difference between an experience that adds or detracts from an experience after the sale.

How do you treat your existing customers? Do they only get attention when there’s issues or you have more to sell? Perhaps there’s untapped creativity that could inspire more lasting joy by letting go?

To spark fresh creativity, consider a quest to delight customers in unexpected ways. Giveaways (without obligation) are an easy way to see how existing customers may react. Impromptu phone calls, handwritten notes, and basically any gesture that shows you care, will naturally retains better customers as well.

As this thoughtfulness is felt within your customer’s experience, more true fans will stick with your team because they care as much as you do. This translates into customer retention, because true fans take pride in staying connected. They have more patience when issues arise and get excited to share your charming work with others.

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“Once you wow an audience, the same trick may not work anymore.” -Seth Godin, Free Prize Inside

By Ben McDougal, ago

Wireframing

After a holiday season full of creative conversations with family and friends, the New Year inspires an openness to what’s next. This leads many to consider building something new. To kickoff 2023, go beyond only being the idea machine. Let’s start building now.

We’ll begin with a common scenario – there’s a cool concept and maybe some industry insight, but the idea requires technology and you lack an ability to code. This often makes first-time founders feel like there’s nothing they can do without paying for development or immediately recruiting co-founders to help build the product. This locks the idea in limbo, when in fact, there are many methods to make purposeful progress without writing a line of code.

One easy way to start is to visualize the idea through a process called wireframing. Wireframing is an entrepreneurial exercise that only requires a pencil, paper, and time. This activity is thought-provoking and allows anyone to conceptualize the structure and flow of their idea. It helps identify each type of user and the user experience (“UX”) with no tech required.

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This twitterstorm connected 78+ tweets and highlights all of my weekly writings from 2022. I work toward this all year, so I hope you’ll enjoy clicking into each satisfying rabbit hole. Please be sure to RT and LIKE your favorites to connect with others as well!

Ready for action? Excellent! Use a wireframing template to draw everything on screens of the device(s) your product will be used on. For example, if it’s a mobile app, find a wireframing template that includes blank smartphone screens and space for notes (example) to describe each state and how everything connects within the user interface (“UI”). Wireframing is mostly used to outline technology-based products, but some thoughtful sketching helps jump start physical products as well. If you’re thinking about a physical product, test your drawing skills by highlighting how different elements collectively come together to form the final embodiment.

Along with clarifying concepts for yourself, coordinated wireframing makes it easier for others to follow how everything fits together. The time spent here will save you money if you outsource development, as a solid roadmap helps lone wolves avoid costly detours. Wireframing helps you hire a team that can build what you want without pushing the idea into a more ordinary direction that works best for them. If you decide to seek co-founders who can effectively help build ideas into reality, (which would be my recommendation, but will take more time), wireframing is one more way to show you’re serious.

As you plug into the startup community, which is critical, this wireframing activity helps support the early versions of a pitch that tells a more impactful story as you breathe fresh air into the idea with feedback from others. While product design and the business to support it will need to evolve, earnest wireframing will help idea machines avoid melting momentum.

By Ben McDougal, ago