Customer

Development
Aviv Shalgi
avivshl@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/avivshalgi

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Customer
Development
Aviv Shalgi
avivshl@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/avivshalgi

Founder Institute – Confidential Information

 Who am I?
• Intel officer
• Turned Engineer (EE&E)
• Turned Management Consultant
• Turned entrepreneur / VC

Currently:
• Founder
• Angel investor
• Startup mentor-advisor
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 Fun facts
As a teenager:
• Personal finance fanatic & public markets
investor at 13
• Professional horse back riding at 15
• Professional gamer at 16 (before it was a thing)
• If only ESports or Twitch existed back then…

Lecturer at my free time about BizDev /

Strategy / personal finance

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 Disclaimer
There are 3 kinds of innovations / startups / solutions
• Solving a problem I know I have
• Solving a problem I think I have
• Solving a problem no one knows about

Founder Institute – Confidential Information

 Disclaimer
There are 3 kinds of innovations / startups / solutions
• Solving a problem I know I have

Founder Institute – Confidential Information

 Disclaimer
There are 3 kinds of innovations / startups / solutions
• Solving a problem I think I have

Founder Institute – Confidential Information

 Disclaimer
There are 3 kinds of innovations / startups / solutions
• Solving a problem no one knows / thinks about

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 Where do I start?

• Who should I speak with?

• What will really get me through the door?

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 Identify potential customers
Incentives

Pain Motivation
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 Which matters most?
Incentives

Pain Motivation
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 Which matters most?
Incentives!

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 Asian 90’s airline
market crash

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 Who is the REAL customer
here? Sufferer
aka customer personas

User Banker
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 I think I know who my target
customer is, now what?

•Forget what you think you know

“God created us with two eyes, two ears

and one mouth”…

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 I think I know who my target
customer is, now what?
• Start reaching out to everyone in the industry, regardless of
the personas, and ask questions…
• How’s their day / week…
• What are their challenges…
• Is there anything that really pains them…
• Don’t force your opinion, listen, take notes and try to read
between the lines

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 Who do I reach out to first,
and how?
• It doesn’t matter!
• The more, the merrier

• Personal network, Alma matter

• Hometown, Friends (of friends of friends…)
• Networking groups / apps (clubhouse, lunchclub, linkedin, facebook,
Firneo, other Founders’ Institute candidates / alum….)
• Cold reach outs (with taste)
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 Why would someone respond?
• People like to talk (think of yourselves)
• But only when they think it’s genuine interest

• Who’s this and why is he here?

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 Why would someone respond?
• People like to talk (think of yourselves)
• But only when they think it’s genuine interest

• “Ask for money, and get advice.

• Ask for advice, get money twice…”

• If you tell folks you’re interested in them or

their industry/ career, they’ll want to talk.
If you try to pitch to them, they’ll disappear…

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 Why am I telling you this?
The problem / pain aren’t always what they seem

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 Why am I telling you this?
The Truth is out there…

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 But I didn’t sell a single thing…
True, BUT!
• You’ve spoken to dozens and dozens of potential customers
• You honed in on a problem or field you’d like to solve
• You understand their incentives and motivations

• Go build an MVP, and follow up

• Ask for their opinion and advice (pitch by not pitching)
• Regardless if they’re interested or not, ask if they know anyone who will be
willing to spend a few minutes with you and share their thoughts
• Most likely, it’ll be a potential customer / vendor / investor / partner
• No one wastes their time these days
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 And by the way!
• Not only did you hear their “truth” (not necessarily “THE TRUTH”)
• You also learned of their incentive structure
• What they care about
• How they like / dislike working
• What bothers them vs. what they enjoy doing

Welcome to the world of figuring out a business model, marketing strategies

and pricing!

P.S. don’t forget to email them a Thank you note, you might need them later...
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 And all you had to do was…
• Ask an open ended question or two
• To a relevant person
• Industry
• Function
• Geography

• And listen….

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 Congratulations!
You’ve now accomplished the one thing 90% of
entrepreneurs fail to do early on…

• Will cost them their startup

• Force a serious pivot down the road

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 But!
You now have 30-50 customer interviews,
with no correlation whatsoever…
• Find commonalities
• What’s the underlying message they were
voicing but not saying?
• Continue the process with new folks
• Hone in on your questions and follow up
with everyone you spoke with
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 What about B2B vs. B2C?

What do you guys think?

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 Questions?
Thank you!

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