Tag: Identifying Customer

Solving Problems and Providing Value: How 2 Validate a Business Idea

By James Truslow | December 9, 2019

When you are considering starting a venture, how do you know if your business idea is worth pursuing? While the support of friends and family is always a great start, you’ll want more confirmation from your target market before investing significant time and resources into the project. Drawing upon his research and experiences as a…

Posted In Living Entrepreneurship Blog

Engaging with Your Customer: How 2 Achieve Customer Success

By James Truslow | November 20, 2019

At the core of any successful startup is a strong understanding of its customers. Throughout this semester’s #How2Tuesdays series, we’ve heard from experts that many startups fail because they never truly put themselves in their customers’ shoes to design a problem-solving product. So how can founders go above and beyond to serve their customers? Earlier…

Posted In Living Entrepreneurship Blog

Keeping the Funnel Full: How 2 Build a Sales Pipeline

By James Truslow | October 15, 2019

The generation of early sales is critical for startups. Securing initial customers validates the need for your idea and provides the necessary funding to keep the business moving. But for entrepreneurs who don’t have a finished product yet, or solopreneurs who will be juggling the role of salesman with other key responsibilities, the sales process…

Posted In Living Entrepreneurship Blog

Customer Discovery

By Hailey Serna | June 15, 2018

“Make your judgement trustworthy by trusting it.” Eric Braun, an advisor of the Summer Venture Program, spoke with our entrepreneurs all about the importance of customer discovery and understanding your assumptions. The only way you can trust your judgments about your customers is by testing them. Take all your hypotheses about your business model and…

Posted In Living Entrepreneurship Blog

How to Interview Customers

By Emily Denoble | June 6, 2016

Unsure how to get honest feedback from customers? Keith Hopper, a Summer Venture Program advisor, recently led a Lunch and Learn workshop focused on this very task. His preferred method? One-on-one interviews. Keith believes that structured interviews help provide validation that you are solving a real problem, and that you are approaching it in the…

Posted In Living Entrepreneurship Blog

Identifying Customer Needs and Prototyping

By Yerim Kim | October 20, 2014

On October 6th, the Butler Venture Accelerator had a workshop on identifying customer needs and prototyping. This workshop aimed to help entrepreneurs to learn how to generate new business ideas based on customer needs. Participants created a simple prototype of a wallet. In the process, participants interviewed their “customer,” created a simple prototype and pitched…

Posted In Living Entrepreneurship Blog