September is when many people decide that this is the year they will start their business. The children are back in school, the summer rush is over, and the idea that has been sitting in a notebook since spring suddenly feels urgent. They register a business name, order a logo, and perhaps begin requesting quotes for a website.
We recommend waiting two or three weeks and taking a less costly step first: speaking with twenty people who might buy the product or service.
Why does customer discovery come before the logo?
Customer discovery is the least visible part of starting a business. It consists of finding people who have the problem you believe you solve and learning how they deal with it today. Steve Blank built an entire method around it, customer development, and its core idea is simple: a business plan is a list of assumptions, and those assumptions must be tested outside the office.
In the business launch program we teach at the CFP Calixa-Lavallée, this is the step participants are most tempted to skip. It seems slow, and approaching strangers can be uncomfortable. Staying home to design the menu is far more appealing.
Yet every other document depends on it: the market section, pricing, the cash-flow forecast and the pitch. If the underlying assumptions are wrong, the entire plan is wrong, however well it is presented.
Why ask about past behaviour rather than future intentions?
This is where most errors occur, and it is the most useful advice we can offer.
If you ask "Would you buy locally roasted coffee delivered to your door?", almost everyone will answer yes. People are polite, and agreeing to a hypothetical costs them nothing. You may conclude that you have a viable business when, in fact, you have learned nothing.
Instead, ask what they actually did.
- "Where did you buy coffee last week?"
- "Roughly how much did you spend on it last month?"
- "Have you ever looked for a local roaster? What happened?"
- "What bothers you about how you get it now?"
Past behaviour is factual. If someone has never looked for a solution to the problem you are describing, it is a strong indication that the problem is not significant enough for them to pay you to solve it. If they have tried three solutions and are dissatisfied with all of them, you have identified a genuine opportunity.
Rob Fitzpatrick's short book The Mom Test is built on exactly this idea. The title refers to the fact that your mother will not tell you the truth in order to be kind, so you need questions that even she cannot answer dishonestly. It is worth an evening of reading.
Why listen more than you pitch?
This is the second pitfall. Enthusiasm leads many entrepreneurs to explain their idea at length. Ten minutes later, the other person knows the entire plan and the entrepreneur has learned nothing about them.
We recommend starting with the other person's situation rather than with the idea. Encourage them to talk about the problem, how they handle it, and what it costs them in time, money or frustration. If you need to describe what you are developing, do so at the very end, and observe what the person does rather than what they say. Do they ask when it will be available? Do they ask about the price? Do they offer to pay a deposit? Or do they say "that sounds nice" and change the subject?
"That sounds nice" should be understood as a no.
Whom should you talk to?
Not your friends and family, or at least not only them. Their affection for you makes their answers unreliable for this purpose. Speak with people who match your customer profile and who have no obligation toward you. In a small region, that may mean the farmers' market, a local Facebook group, the chamber of commerce, or the people waiting at the post office. If you sell to businesses, speak with businesses. Ask for fifteen minutes, offer a coffee, and respect the fifteen-minute limit.
Twenty conversations may seem like a lot, but they represent a few weeks of evenings. By the tenth or twelfth, you will begin to hear the same points repeated, which is precisely the objective.
Why record what surprised you?
Take notes during or immediately after each conversation. A full transcript is not necessary; record what the person said about the problem, what they do now, what they pay, and anything that was unexpected.
The surprises are the most valuable part. What you expected to hear mostly confirms what you already believed. What you did not expect shows where the plan needs to change. Perhaps the customers you had in mind are not interested, but a different group is. Perhaps price is not the issue at all, and delivery times are. Perhaps the problem is real, but people have already solved it with an inexpensive solution that meets their needs.
After twenty conversations, review your notes and your plan side by side. Remove what did not hold up and revise what has changed. This is also when tools such as the Business Model Canvas become useful, because the boxes are now filled with what you heard rather than with what you hoped.
What should you build next?
If the conversations point to a genuine need, we recommend testing it concretely before making a large investment. A simple landing page describing the offer, with a pre-order or waiting-list form. A small number of handmade samples sold at a market. A short survey sent to the people who said yes, to verify the numbers you heard in person. The objective is to see whether people provide their email address or their money, not just their approval.
If the conversations point nowhere, that is also a valuable result. It means a few disappointing weeks rather than two disappointing years and a loan to repay. Most business ideas that pass this step emerge stronger, even if they end up somewhat different from the version in the notebook.
The logo can wait. It will be more effective once you know whom it is for.