A playbook for Generating Business Ideas

The 3 Biggest Reasons to Practice Customer
Development
So you’ve applied some of the strategies and tactics in this book, and now you
have a business idea. You're super excited about it and you think you will make
a ton of money from it and it will change the world. You have a vision and you
want to bring it to life.
In addition, customer development is hard. Going out and talking to customers is
time-consuming and requires you to step out of your comfort zone. You
understandably don't want to be proven wrong.
Below are three of many more reasons to practice customer development.
1. Avoid spending time and money building something no one wants.
It can take a lot of time and money to build a business. Life is short and money
is kind of important, so you don't want to waste either. By doing some customer
development to test your idea, you can avoid spending a lot of time and money
on something that no one wants. You can then move on to a higher return
opportunity or improve your idea into something that customers do want.
Customer development is hard and takes a long time. You know what takes
longer and stinks more? Spending a bunch of time and money on a business with
no potential!
2. Gain insights to help you build the most valuable product possible.
Customer development can be used to optimize an idea or an existing product. If
your initial idea is not something that people want, customer development can
help you hone your idea into one that customers do want, or find another
problem that's worth solving. In my article on SinglePlatform, the founder
explained that his initial hypotheses were only about 50% correct, but by doing
customer development, he was able to make improvements to the proposed
product to a point where customers paid him before the product was built.

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3. Generate business ideas.
Customer development is commonly associated with and used to test ideas.
However, you can also use it to get new startup ideas. You can get ideas simply
by asking the right questions and listening effectively. By doing so, you can
learn what people's challenges and pain points are, and what they need.

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Chapter 11: Is Your Idea Worth Pursuing?
I’ve talked to a lot of people (and I’ve been in the same situation myself in the
past) who have identified a startup idea, and are considering whether or not to
pursue it. Others may be considering joining an early-stage startup or someone
with just an idea (pre-traction, pre-product, etc.).
It’s common, and valuable, to evaluate an idea from a strategic and fundamental
perspective. However, in reality, a company’s success is dependent upon a lot
more than the quality of the idea.
Some people think the idea doesn’t matter at all. For example, many VCs
consider the strength of the team the most important factor for evaluating an
investment opportunity. I don’t think that the “idea” or product doesn’t matter at
all. However, I think there are a few things to consider in addition to how great
the idea is.
Different people will have different criteria depending on things like risk
tolerance, career goals, budget, etc. Below are some factors to consider when
deciding what to pursue, along with my personal criteria given my short-term
and longer-term goals.