Speak with your customers 🗣️

Speak with your customers.

Today’s tip is as simple as that (yet worth remembering).

Whether you’re doing from 0 to 1, scaling from 1 to 1000s, or being in an established business. 

Whatever. 

Please don’t get still. Or better — don’t close yourself in internal meetings, convincing yourself and others over the same ideas. 

Or put a blindfold on by following newsletters ‘best practices’. 

Because sometimes, best practices are just ‘average’ practices — they’re shared, and everyone follows them.

Blindly, without considering context and the unpredictability of human(s) brains. 

• Do you have customers? Jump on a 15-minute call with them. 

• Don’t have customers? Ask the free trial users. 

• Don’t have free trial users? Ask your leads (newsletter, sales…).

• Don’t have leads? Go out where you think your ideal customer goes, offer a coffee, and ask a few quick questions to understand if your product solves their pains. 

Then, iterate. Messaging (and, when possible, product).

Don’t know what to ask? Look here >

By reading and chatting around, I see more and more founders and marketing teams losing sight of the only actual best practice: speak with customers. 

Lenny Rachitsky, in his latest issue, reports that speaking with your customers is the main advice given by Paul Graham (Y Combinator founder) to 50%+ of the startups he advises. 

Last week, Ben Williams (The Product-Led Geek) reported that ICPs may vary across time (from today to 1 year and more) and space (different countries). 

Also, users can use your product in a way you didn’t even think about — giving precious insights both in terms of product marketing positioning and when it comes to product roadmap (new features, products, and more). 

Speaking with customers is also crucial when naming new products, as Tamara Grominsky suggests. 

So, in the end, don’t do like Siddharta — searching for a sempiternal answer far away from home. Instead, look around. Maybe you have the answer just near you. 

See you in the next issue,

Francesco

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