Customer discovery is a grind. It’s not intellectually challenging, but it will test your motivation, as getting dozens, if not hundreds, of calls with potential customers is a lot of work. Many founders do the bare minimum customer discovery and instead rely on their own hypothesis to start building. I suggest you do the opposite and be patient on customer discovery.
1. A Bad Idea Costs More Time
While customer discovery might be a grind, you will cost yourself a lot more time if you pursue an idea that isn’t what people want. You will have to pivot and start over.
2. Ensuring Desperation
Doing lots of discovery calls allows you to keep asking folks about their biggest problems and make sure your solution is not just something they need but something they need urgently and need so much they’re willing to trust a small startup.
3. Guaranteed Customers
If you get up to 200 discovery calls, there’s a really good chance by then you’ll have a clear idea and reasonable messaging. That means many of the later discovery calls will turn into sales discussions, as we know you’re solving a serious problem. We often see founders with 30 customers on their waitlist, from doing those 200 calls.
Best of luck out there.
Sterling Road invests in idea stage and pre-seed B2B startups based in the US, Canada and UK.
