Understand your customers

Talk to real users, define who you're for, and read the market clearly.

What founders use for understand your customers, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. This is the primary-source study most vernacular-content stats you'll see online actually trace back to, so it's worth reading... KPMG in India / Google Article · 68-page PDF report Indian Languages: Defining India's Internet KPMG in India and Google
  2. India does not have one launch button, so this is a useful starting point precisely because it shows ten real companies... Medium Article · ~10 min read How These 10 Indian Companies Got Their First 1000 Customers Harkirat Singh
  3. When you are the only one selling something like your product, cost-plus and competitor benchmarks give you nothing to anchor... Wiley (2016) Book · Book, ~240 pages Monetizing Innovation: How Smart Companies Design the Product Around the Price Madhavan Ramanujam and Georg Tacke
  4. When you have no budget, the worst move is to pour your limited time into a channel that was never going to work for your... Portfolio (Penguin Random House) Book Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
  5. This is the classic counterweight to the first-timer instinct to price low out of nervousness. McKenzie's core argument is that... Kalzumeus Software Essay · About a 10 minute read You Can Probably Stand To Charge More Patrick McKenzie (patio11)
  6. This is the canonical a16z reference that defines the marketplace vocabulary you actually need before you build a model: GMV vs... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay 13 Metrics Every Marketplace Company Should Track Jeff Jordan, Li Jin, D'Arcy Coolican, Andrew Chen (a16z)
  7. Before you tune CAC and take rate, this book gives you the structural picture of why marketplace economics compound: network... W. W. Norton & Company Book Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, Sangeet Paul Choudary
  8. The global playbooks assume a US-style buying process; this one is written for the Indian enterprise reality, where the sale... Blume Ventures Article · 25 min read The Rough Guide to Building an Enterprise SaaS Dhandha in India Blume Ventures (with Aakrit Vaish, Haptik)
  9. Todd Jackson studied how dozens of now-large companies validated their very first idea. The pattern that repeats: deliver the... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to Validate Your Startup Idea Todd Jackson
  10. Blank invented customer development, and this manifesto boils it into a short set of rules, starting with the idea that there... Steve Blank Essay · 12 min read Nail the Customer Development Manifesto to the Wall Steve Blank
  11. This is the most direct answer to the second half of your question: where do you actually find these people. The piece walks... Product Talk Article · 15 min read Tools of the Trade: Finding People to Interview Before You Have Customers Melissa Suzuno
  12. This is founders trading real tactics on the exact wall you will hit: getting strangers to say yes to a call. You get honest,... Indie Hackers Thread · 10 min read How do you actually get people to do customer discovery interviews? Indie Hackers
  13. A focused guide on the recruiting outreach itself, with a message template you can adapt. It covers who to ask, how to word the... Wynter Article · 12 min read Customer interviews: How to always get a yes Hannah Shamji
  14. The qualitative half of the answer, told through founders describing the moment things flipped: inbound you cannot keep up... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~2,000 words What it feels like when you've found product-market fit Lenny Rachitsky
  15. A useful correction for founders chasing a market-wide 40 percent before a single cohort loves the product. The authors argue... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Article · ~2,000 words Product-User Fit Comes Before Product-Market Fit Peter Lauten and David Ulevitch
  16. This is the best method for the exact job of learning an industry's language when you cannot yet get face time with people in... Stacking the Bricks (Amy Hoy) Article · video walkthrough Sales Safari in Action Amy Hoy
  17. Ramanujam argues that putting willingness to pay at the very centre of product design, before you build, is what separates... First Round Review Article It's Price Before Product. Period. Madhavan Ramanujam
  18. A method for finding exactly where your customers already gather online, the forums, subreddits, and groups where they post... Stacking the Bricks Article · ~12 min read How to Find Your Audience's Online Watering Holes Alex Hillman
  19. A short research backed breakdown of how three marketplace giants solved the cold start problem by hand. You will see that all... Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Article · 8 min read How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers Michael Blanding
  20. A clear, short explainer on why asking friends (or anyone) what they want produces false positives, and how to interview for... NYU Entrepreneurship Article · 8 min read Stop Asking What They Want: Why Customer Discovery Is About Problems, Not Products Frank Rimalovski
  21. When you want your old network to open doors rather than just buy, this covers how to ask in a way that respects their time and... Kristina Hu (Hu Knows) Article · ~8 min read How to Ask for a Warm Intro Kristina Hu
  22. Before you sweat which side to seed, Gurley helps you judge whether your marketplace is even structurally worth building. He... Above the Crowd Essay · 20 min read All Markets Are Not Created Equal: 10 Factors to Consider When Evaluating Digital Marketplaces Bill Gurley
  23. Since supply is usually the side you bootstrap by hand, this is a focused list of 28 concrete ways real marketplaces did it. It... andrewchen.com Article · 15 min read 28 Ways to Grow Supply in a Marketplace Lenny Rachitsky (via Andrew Chen)
  24. A practical, structured playbook for the exact fear in this question: users quietly leaking away. Lenny breaks retention into... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to Increase Your Product's Retention Lenny Rachitsky

Show the next 24

The questions

Talking to customers & user research 18

Learn the truth without leading the witness.

How do I talk to customers without them just telling me what I want to hear? 23 → What questions should I actually ask in a customer interview? 22 → How many customer interviews do I need before I trust the signal? 24 → Where do I find people to interview when I have zero audience? 24 → How do I run customer discovery as an Indian founder building for Indian users? 24 → All 18 questions in Talking to customers & user research →
Defining your ideal customer 18

Know exactly who you're for (and who you're not).

What is an ideal customer profile and how do I define mine? 24 → How specific should my target customer be when I'm just starting? 24 → What's the difference between an ICP, a buyer persona, and a target market? 24 → How do I know if I'm targeting the wrong customer? 24 → Should I focus on one customer segment or serve everyone who'll pay? 23 → All 18 questions in Defining your ideal customer →
Finding your niche / beachhead 17

Win a tiny market completely before going wide.

What is a beachhead market and why does everyone say to start with one? 1 → How do I pick which niche to go after first? 2 → Isn't picking a tiny niche going to limit how big I can get? 2 → How do I know when I've won my niche and it's time to expand? 1 → How do I find a defensible niche in a market full of big incumbents? 2 → All 17 questions in Finding your niche / beachhead →
Understanding the problem (JTBD) 17

People hire products to do a job, find the job.

What does 'jobs to be done' actually mean? 2 → How is JTBD different from features, personas, or user needs? 2 → How do I actually uncover the job my customers are hiring my product for? 3 → Who are my real competitors once I think in jobs to be done? 3 → How do I turn a job to be done into product and messaging decisions? 2 → All 17 questions in Understanding the problem (JTBD) →
Competitive & market research 18

Know the landscape better than the incumbents.

How do I research my competitors properly? 2 → What if my customers say they have no competitors, is that good or bad? 2 → What tools should I use to track competitors and market landscape? 2 → How do I position against a bigger, better-funded competitor? 2 → How do I size the market and figure out if it's big enough? 2 → All 18 questions in Competitive & market research →
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