Episode #33
033: Yes, talking about "customers" harms most founders. Instead, identify "bank accounts" of Pain.
I hate it when a founder says they "talked to customers about a startup idea". If a startup is just an idea, then how can it also have customers? Sloppy language leads to sloppy thinking, which drives the most common outcome for startups: a founder wasting a year on an idea that was never going to get customers. The perspective of Nascent is that a startup is a project in creating new knowledge and that founders of startups with no customers need an accurate way to describe their audience: People in Pain™. Previously, Episode 032 presented how to convert emotions of People in Pain into dollar values. Here in Episode 033, we extend that framework to mean that People in Pain have a "bank account" in the currency of the problem that the startup will solve. Founders can use the People-to-Prospect Funnel™ to filter out the people unaffected by the problem — Blockers and Distractions — who have no bank account at all. This framework allows founders to better identify relevant interviewees and more quickly improve their startup idea. In this episode: (00:00) The cognitive dissonance of calling everyone a "customer" (01:44) The Lean Startup book has at least 4 meanings for the word "customer" (02:31) Examples of "customer" on pages 43, 51 and 121 of Lean Startup (04:08) What's earlier? Every customer starts as a Person in Pain (05:32) The People-to-Prospect Funnel reveals who founders should focus on (06:48) An example: The food cart pod (08:01) Bank accounts in the currency of your startup's problem (08:59) An example: an AI app for homeowners (09:41) For People with a "bank account", how much is in it? Are you new to the Nascent podcast ? This post provides context and a starting point. Let's connect: Newsletter: https://nascentstartups.com Miro board with visuals and frameworks: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVGhU2Xoo=/ Work with Mike: https://nascentidea.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikevladimer YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NascentIdea Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5BtFtYF6nVUkLu7d7VVnSY Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nascent-startups-podcast/id1728760830 Twitter: https://x.com/NascentIdea Reach Mike at Podcast@NascentIdea.com Links and sources: Eric Ries, The Lean Startup Nascent Ep022 : Yes, search for People in Pain. But they're invisible. Nascent Ep025 : No, searching for People in Pain is not marketing Nascent Ep028 : Yes, the easiest way to analyze discovery interviews is with the Yardstick of Pain. Nascent Ep027 : No, don't interpret discovery interviews by feel. Nascent Ep032 : Yes, we can value startup ideas in dollars. Nascent frameworks referenced: People in Pain™ — The first signal a startup might have a customer. Every customer starts as a Person in Pain. People-to-Prospect Funnel™ — Maps the journey from all humans down to the few who might become a startup's first customers. Introduced in Ep022 , detailed in Ep025. Blockers — People the problem simply doesn't apply to. The hay in the haystack. Distractions — People who don't have the problem but encourage you to build the solution anyway. They will never pay, so their encouragement is a false signal. Yardstick of Pain™ — A three-bucket emotional scale (hurting, fine, joyous) that founders use to categorize interviewees. Introduced in Ep027 .
