Essay · 12 min read

Updating the Sales Safari System for 2023

Alex Hillman · Stacking the Bricks Free Intermediate

Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman built the Sales Safari methodology, and a business, around finding what an audience already complains about paying to fix, then selling before building. This piece, written by Hillman, updates that research method for modern community platforms, which is a useful complement to one-on-one interviews when you want pattern evidence across many potential customers at once.

  • Look for what people are already frustrated enough about to have spent money trying to fix.
  • Research an audience's own words in public forums before you ever pitch them anything.
  • Pre-selling forces you to describe a specific, paid outcome before you have built the thing that delivers it.
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It answers 3 questions

  1. What's the difference between a customer saying they'll pay and actually pulling out a card, and how do I test the real one early?
  2. How do I recruit and interview my competitor's customers without it getting weird or them shutting down?
  3. How do I tell the difference between a nice-to-have problem and one people will actually change their behavior to fix?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. Video · ~20 min How To Talk To Users | Startup School Gustaf Alstromer
  3. A short, practical field guide to customer discovery: who to talk to, how to find them, and how many. Pairs perfectly with The... talkingtohumans.com Book · ~80 pages (free PDF available) Talking to Humans Giff Constable
  4. Turns the vague feeling of product-market fit into a number you can move. Ask users how they would feel if they could no longer... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit Rahul Vohra
  5. The book that coined get out of the building and launched the customer development movement. Blank's core claim is that a... Wiley Book The Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve Blank
  6. A YC partner turns 'talk to users' into a repeatable 5-question interview script you can use this afternoon. It's The Mom Test... YC Startup Library Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky (YC / founder of Pebble)
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