Mike Kyriacou - Getting to Problem-Market Fit

1. Getting to
Product Market Fit
A Presentation by Mike Kyriacou
18th July 2017 | Estoril, Portugal

2. Introduction
Observe - Customer Profile
Design – Value Map
Next Steps
Getting to
Product Market Fit

3. Introduction

4. • Frustrated, left
• Exact Steel: Learned Iron Ore about to explode. Invested in mining town.
• As values and rents exploded, used rents as income while looking around for value-add
opportunities:
 Radio station: Buy & licence to nearby competitor.
 Telco: Built team, negotiated partnerships & raised capital to buy out assets.
 Bought 50-person Electro Acoustics Co. Designed our
own products suite, superior yet plug-compatible with competitors.
Sold as products company, 2010. ELA Security (spin-off) sold in 2015.
• Selected for a SV program – led to working and consulting for VC firms.
• Lectured entrepreneurship, Stanford University Continuing Studies and Expert-In-
Residence at Bootstrap Labs (VC firm).
• AI Financial Analysis. Signed two national deals. Key announcement shortly…
Who IS This Guy?
Exact Steel
Strattica Group
Silicon Valley
Strattica Labs
Stanford & BSL
ERG Group
Aussie Entrepreneur,
now based in Silicon Valley

5. The Sins of Ventures
Past

6. • Near impossible – and very expensive - to
push a product out into the unknown and
have it be successful.
• NEVER invest vast time or money on a
guess.
The Mind of
“The Customer”
DEEP,
COMPLEX,
NUANCED,
DYNAMIC
The Customer

7. The Riddle of
The Customer
The Customer
“Interesting, but just not
important to us.”
“YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND
MY PROBLEM”
“You just don’t get it”
“Meh”
“Rubbish”
“Nope”
“Nahh”
“Not if you PAID me!”
Dumb, Highly Detailed Guesses
Years of Preparation Loss of Money, Hope, Youth

8. , 544 BC

9. Solution to
The Riddle
1. Start FIRST with The Customer.
2. Build what They Need.(At scale.)

10. • Shock: You are NOT here to build the exact app you though of.
• You are here to solve A Much Bigger and Even More Thrilling Goal:
• Builds Great Wealth | Positively Impacts Lives | Changes The World.
• Our passion comes from cracking the problem of finding a
sustainable product customers love.
Why you are
REALLY here…
Who is my customer,
and how can I build my insights
into an engine that generates value?

11. design observe
High Level:
The Value Prop Canvas
Powerful mental model for how to think
about designing Value Propositions.
Fit

12. Observe - Customer Profile

13. Selecting A Customer
Segment
• Focus: Laser focus to start: Select one specific customer segment.
• Access: Which segments can you access most easily? Of those, which
can you access cost-effectively at scale?
• Learning Speed: How long is the sales cycle? Can you learn fast enough
before your company dies? In start-ups, energy, passion, and cash all
drain over time: If learning is too slow, you’ll exhaust these resources
before you reach a viable solution.

14. Jobs:
Functional, Social
& Emotional
• Observe: List the jobs your customer needs to get done.
• Deeper: Make sure you include not just Functional (what they must get done), but also
 Social (interpersonal impact they want to have), and
 Emotional (how they want to feel)
• WHY? Ask “WHY? … why? … and why is that? Important because it forces us to focus on THE
NEED BEHIND THE NEED
• Revisit: Interpretation is always imperfect with incorrect inclusions, misunderstandings and
wrongful omissions. Revisit, iterate once we have a value prop.
• IMPORTANT: Customer jobs are INDEPENDENT OF your value proposition!

15. Pains
• List all negative issues, emotions, blocks and other
undesired outcomes that affect or block the
customers ability to get the job done.

16. Gains
• List customers benefits and emotions they seek to
gain from completing the jobs. What is their ideal
outcome?

17. Critical: Rank
Observations
Rank to identify
Extreme Pains &
Essential Gains
Pains Gains
Extreme Pain Essential Gains
http://blog.strategyzer.com/posts/2017/3/26/the-high-value-customer-jobs-you-need-to-focus-on
TrivialTrivial
Jobs
High Value
Trivial

18. Address only Extreme
Pain & Essential
Gains

19. Design – Value Map

20. The Value Map

21. Value Proposition Must Address
only High Value Jobs, Extreme
Pain & Essential Gains

22. DESIGN: A Primer
Big Question: What solution could address top pains/gains?
4
Requires:
• Creative Thinking
• Logical Problem solving

23. WRONG USE:
“I am a black-hat
person”
CORRECT USE:
“Let’s put on our Red
Hats – how do we feel
about this solution?
…Ok Let’s put on our
white hats – what
data do we need?...”
How do we feel
about this?
Don’t ignore!
Emotion
What are ways
this solution
won’t work?
Logical Negative
What high level
direction
should we
take?
Strategy
Brainstorm
different
possibilities –
WITHOUT
judgement.
Creative
What are ways
we can make this
solution work?
Logical Positive
What data
do we
need?
Information
The Power of The Six Thinking Hats

24. Everything that can be built
Everything your
team
can build
Solutions that
address only
essential gains
excruciating pains
Solutions that address all
pains & gains
Product that implements
your solution.
Constraining
Solutions

25. Ease of Scalability
Slow,
Expensive
Talent
More Scalable
Products
Most Scalable
Online

26. • Many people, many times or just a few people once
a year?
• YOU can REACH the customers economically?
• Who can you reach AND be heard above the
noise of all the competitors?
Eg: No small business loans.
• Can you learn and achieve meaningful metrics fast
enough?
• Can you conduct fast, inexpensive experiments?
Eg: No government bids
Ask: “how do we positively impact a billion people”
To make a billion, first think how to deliver a billion $s of value.
What does this look like?
High Volume /
High Frequency
Economic Cust.
Acquisition?
Sales
Cycle
Filter
Possible Solutions

27. What Makes Your Solution
Unique?
• Map out Competitors & Substitutes – including “doing without” - all from
your customers’ point of view.
• What is makes your solution unique?
• Please don’t do this:
Team: Our value prop is X
Mike: Isn’t that like Trip Advisor? How are you different?
Team: We will have a better UX. Their UX is terrible.
Mike: Ah. Who is your designer.
Team: We don’t have a designer…
NOTE: Any UX innovation (Eg: Pinterest) can be easily copied.

28. Executive: “We differentiate by our biscuits having crinkly edges.
So now we’ve made big investments in factories
that make biscuits with crinkly edges.”
Survey
Would you like a biscuit
with Crinkly Edges?
Yes
REALITY: Customers DIDN’T CARE about crinkly edges.
LESSON: Be unique in a way that your customer CARES
about.
DON’T BE A CRINKLY BUSCUIT MANAGER!
Beware: The Story of the Crinkly Biscuits

30. The Value Map

31. Next Steps

32. Getting Fit
On Paper
Identify a solution
to address
validated pains & gains.
Problem-Solution
Fit
In The Market
Customers love (use/buy)
your product.
Product-Market
Fit
$$$
In The Bank
Scalable business model
that is
financially sustainable.
Business Model
Fit

33. Today’s
Goals
Building the customer map with gologle tools
Task 1: Competiton
Task 2: Demand and Trends

34. NEVER ask questions about the future.
“Would you use Uber for Dog Food if we build it?” --- “YES. (Yeah, yeah – sure, I guess, whatever…)”