You are not selling a product or a service. You are selling an experience.
Use Solution (Product-Customer) Matrix to connect your Concept with the User, Buyer, and Banker persona before investing in the final marketable Product or reshape the existing business model.
42% of startups fail because they offer products or services that the market doesn’t need.
-source CB Insights
Solution Canvas (Product- Customer Canvas)
#Experience
Create products clients really need
The main reason a business is going out of business is that there is no need for the Product on the market. The main reason can be split in three categories: (1) prospects do not understand your product (2) prospects have not heard about your product (3) the wrong market was targeted.
In an online article by Investopedia.com, the author, Sean Bryant” indicates that in “2019, the failure rate of startups was around 90%.” He named lack of research, poor marketing, targeting the wrong market, lack of knowledge about the industry, choosing the wrong partnership, and financial mismanagement as the reasons entrepreneurs gave for their failed businesses.
In our program, we use canvases to brainstorm, generate ideas, and give us an overview image of the topic we’re analyzing. The canvas helps
us to structure the ideas into working decisional matrices. Matrices help us to generate the most efficient action plan to reach our goals with minimum resources in a defined period of time.
Product-Customer validation process is not an optional add-on to your business. It is a necessity. Effective product-customer validation also needs to be an ongoing process. The most successful companies are constantly adjusting their strategies based on this validation process
How it works
A. Roadmap.
A general picture of the steps you’ll need to take to build your business. Draw your business roadmap to picture your idea into a business flow. See Roadmap image.
B. Solution Canvas
Build a Solution Canvas for this Section. Each side of the canvas is a panel. The canvas has four panels. Each panel will turn into a matrix. See Solution Canvas image.
Panel 1: Validate your Idea – Is your idea realistic or not? Validate the proof of Concept.
Panel 2: Validate the Concept – Is the Concept solving a problem? Is the solution addressing the root cause of the need?
Panel 3: Validate your Customer – Are you addressing the solution for the right people in need?
Panel 4: Validate your Product – Are validated Customers ready to buy your Product?
C. Build a Decisional Spiral.
A Decisional Spiral is a series or a chain of Matrices linked to one another. Even if you are working on different matrices simultaneously, each one should be validated before investing resources. See Decisional Spiral image.
D. The Matrix
Build a Matrix based on each panel of the Solution Canvas. Each matrix is comprised of 4 elements. See Matrix image.
Current State – This is where you currently are. Example: this is where you start with an idea.
Critical Point 1 – Reactor/Receiver of Action. Example: Customer.
Critical Point 2 – Actor/Generator of Action. Example: The Customer’s Need.
Future State – This is your end goal for this stage. Example: This is where you have a validated product ready to go into production.
E. SMART Action Plan
You develop and control the strategy that was based on the matrix you’re currently working on.
