Customer Validation: Sticking It Out vs Pivoting to a New Problem
Last night was class #5 of MGMT224 “Launching Entrepreneurial Ventures” at Georgetown University. In this class, the venture teams focused on a customer’s attempts at solving a problem (work arounds, past solutions, current solutions, and potential alternatives).
One of the teams decided to focus on people who are either too hot or too cold when they go to sleep. After their first round of 10 customer interviews, they were struggling because they felt that none of the customer segments they had interviewed had a really acute, intense, pain.
They wanted to drop the problem and move onto another one. We had a lively discussion about whether or not this problem statement was validated or invalidated by the customer interviews and customer research. The customer interviews indicated it wasn’t an inconvenience but not a real intense pain. However, the customer research indicated that there were companies that were attempting to solve it (mattresses and/or blankets that heated or cooled).
We reached a bit of an impasse. So I paused and asked the entire class to raise their hands if they were too hot when they slept at night. About 20 people raised their hand. I then asked, how many people were too cold at night, and about 4–5 people raised their hand.
