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The 5 Jobs to Address Uncertainty

The 5 Jobs to Address Uncertainty

by | Apr 21, 2021 | 21st Century Leadership, Innovation

The increased complexity and endless disruptions of the modern world brought on by the transition to the digital age means uncertainty is everywhere. All across our businesses, we face new challenges, as what used to work no longer achieves desired outcomes. The self-awareness of admitting what we don’t know is the first step toward figuring out new best practices. Fundamentally, people must act differently in the face of uncertainty. Businesses need to adopt learning strategies in order to improve, adapt, or even reinvent their execution strategies.

Lean Startup Book Cover

Lean Startup Book Cover

by | Aug 29, 2011 | Customer Development, Lean Startup

Here’s what I submitted to Eric Ries as an idea for the cover of his upcoming book: For some reason, it didn’t get chosen.  : )  Actually, it’s a just slide from my You are (not) a Visionary deck I presented at last week’s Wisconsin’s...

Fire Yourself

by | Jun 8, 2011 | Brant's Rant, Customer Development, Startups

During the next week of reflection, a non-early adopter, but loyal user of the product called the founder to announce that he would not after all, pay for the product. Not at the proposed price, not at the price they had argued for, not at any price.
So he fired himself as Founder and CEO of his company. And then he fired me. (“I no longer need your services. But in the future…”)
We talked briefly about his future, including possible pivots and leaps, but essentially, the gig was up. I admire his self-awareness and the honesty with which he evaluated his situation.

B2B Customer Development

by | Sep 13, 2010 | Brant's Rant, Customer Development, Lean Startup, Process-Oriented Marketing, Sales and Marketing Roadmap, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

Welcome to the maze of complex B2B sales. Did you think B2B sales was going to be straightforward; based solely on rational, business-savvy calculations? Based on the bottom-line? Most everyone recognizes that the B2C sales process requires appealing to consumer’s emotions. But believe it or not, business buyers, influencers and users are human, too, and thus are not-exempt from emotional decision making. Ego, hierarchy, competitiveness, fear, grandstanding, sycophantry join budget, market share, revenue, profits, risk, time, resources in the sale.
The “Status Quo Coefficient” represents that which you must overcome above and beyond the pain your product solves, in order to make a sale.

The Art of the Customer Development Conversation

by | Sep 2, 2010 | Brant's Rant, Customer Development, Lean Startup, Marketing Help, Sales and Marketing Roadmap

Generally speaking:
Pre-Problem-Solution Fit, you concentrate on learning as much as you can about the problem, who are the real customers (user? buyer? boss?), and possible solutions.
Pre-Minimum Viable Product, you concentrate of learning, developing and testing the minimum features and functionality required o solve the problem to a degree the customer will buy.
Pre-Product-Market Fit, you concentrate on learning about funnels, testing messaging and positioning, and likely iterating on product and market segment in search of P-M fit.