You’ll have heard in the past chapter, in agile software development that speaking to the customer is key to get their feedback and input.
Software development teams prioritise user experience, and the help their products bring to those customers, in order to create products that are easy to use and understand.
As a side-hustle entrepreneur, it's important to keep your customers' needs and desires at the forefront of your business decisions.
Focus on these needs and help you’re bringing when marketing your products.
Don’t simply tweet saying ‘my Daily Planner template has a journal section and tasks’, instead tell the customer ‘feel better about the day by writing down your thoughts, and be more organised with your tasks in one place’.
As the title suggests - speak to customers!
Speak to them before you release your product (on what they need help with), speak to them after you’ve released your product (on their thoughts of the product) and speak to them after they’ve used their product (if it’s helping them).
The 5 Why’s approach is a simple technique when engaging with your customers. Simply - keep asking ‘why’ 5 times, and you’ll eventually get to a route cause.
If a customer says ‘I want this button to be red’, don’t be content with simply accept that bit of feedback. Ask them why they want that button to be red.
By asking this, you’ll understand the fundamental help that you’re trying to bring to your customer.
However customers can sometimes be a bit tricky when answering questions.. sometimes they may not answer why in the right way! E.g. Q: “Why would you like the button red?”, A: “I prefer my buttons when doing this action to be red”. But that doesn’t give you the level of detail you need, to asses what help you’re giving them! So keep asking why, until you find out just why that customer needs the button to be red - as sometimes they may not necessarily care about it being red, they just want an easier way to do an action.
Previous
Chapter 1: The rituals of Software Development teams
Next
Chapter 3: Collaboration is King