Which comes first?

I recently met with an entrepreneur at a networking event (yes, I seem to do that a lot). He is an intense engineer who immediately started talking to me about his idea. Without going into too much detail, he's considering a programmable consumer device addressing a variety of possible uses.

Variety. Therein lies the entrepreneur's problem. He didn't know which particular consumer need he should fill, especially since he personally had about a dozen ideas on how the product could be used.

So I jumped in with what I thought to be winning advice. Go to a bunch of potential customers and - here's a novel idea - ask them what is their most important problem (in that particular space of course). Especially since his product was aimed at Joe Ordinary and his family, I thought the entrepreneur could do the checking among his own friends and family without much effort. Heck, I said, ask the would-be customers what would be their top three problems and you'd have a head start on your product roadmap.

Suffice to say, I was surprised that the suggestion met with the tepid reception of an hour-old latte. The entrepreneur was confident that he knew what the customer wanted, he just needed to figure out what he could built first and the rest would follow. And, he felt, it was too early to talk to the customers.

Hmmm. I can see why entrepreneurs, especially engineers, want to start building without spending too much time on 'focus groups' and 'market research'. You could be mired in the dreaded analysis paralysis or spend way too much money (if you have it) on fancy research techniques. And it is so much fun to build! But, on the other hand, you've got to know why anyone would want your product - not just why you'd want your product (see Customer Focus about tripping up on that particular path). And if you're aiming for the consumer market, you really have to know how your customer/user is likely to use your product.

Though I personally get attracted by a product idea, I'm learning to focus on understanding the customer first. I'm on my way to making it a fanatical focus even, because I've learned that without customers the product is nothing but a 'project'. And there's no substitute to spending a lot of time talking to, and observing, your potential users. I'm of the school of thought that believes engineers, architects, designers have to spend time in direct contact with their customers, not just let 'product marketing' tell them what to build. And this is all the more important in the early stages when your product is nothing more than mockups and PowerPoint slides about the mockups.

Prototypes are awesome, and often, necessary. But to build the prototype you first have to talk to your customers and figure out what you should put into it. And then, once you have your proto-widget, you have to go back to the customers (including the same ones you talked to earlier) and see what they have to say now. Most likely, you'll take your fine little proto back to your garage or the server in your bedroom and do it all over again. But the key point is, you can't build without talking to the customer. This is what should be emblazoned on every entrepreneur's garage, bathroom mirror, bedroom wall and screen saver: the customer comes first, not the product.