Customer development is critical for the success for any new product development initiative. But what if your new initiative solves a problem in a developing country? Can you really solve the problems on the ground without spending significant time living in the country where the product will be used? In this talk, we use the Playpump case study to understand why the only real way to build a sustainable venture that solves problems in developing countries is to do primary market research on the ground. We explore a few research techniques you can engage in, including interviews, observation and immersion. This talk includes interactive simulations where participants will learn valuable research techniques via an interactive exercise.

1. Legatum Center
Seminar and Workshop
Understand YOUR customer in
developing countries
October 30, 2015
Elaine Chen

2. Today’s agenda
• What do we need to understand?
• How do we build this knowledge?
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3. Part 1:
What do we need to understand?
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4. 4

6. 6

8. What happened?
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9. Points to ponder
• What is the problem to be solved?
• What are some possible solutions?
• Who should have been involved in decision
making?
• What else should they have thought about?
• How could they have built knowledge about
all of the above?
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10. User personas

11. Buyer personas
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12. 1st step to understanding your customer:
Map the decision making unit
• Economic buyer
• Champions
• Influencers
• Veto powers
• End users
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13. In class exercise
• Based on what you know, map your Decision
Making Unit (DMU)
• Make a list of hypotheses to be validated in
the field
• Write a hypothetical customer profile for one
of the people in your DMU. You will be playing
this person in a simulation exercise in the
second half of the seminar.
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14. Sharing!
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15. Part 2:
How do we build this knowledge?
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16. You don’t know what you don’t know
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17. Detailed interviews
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18. Observation

19. Immersion

20. On personas and interviews
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21. Persona Example
2013 Revenue:
$4.2B
Headcount:
362,000
BU Headcount:
700
Jim’s team
300
Behaviors
• Reports to the BU General Manager
• Manages the software organization (all
aspects) and the associated budget
• Technically the best guy on staff
• Makes all key decisions on tools and
systems for developers in his business
unit
Demographics
• 48 years old
• Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT
• Has been managing teams for 15 years.
Hands on. Still writes code every day.
• Married with high school children
• Drives a Toyota Prius
• Carries a Samsung Note
Needs and goals
• He wants his team to turn out the very
best code and is willing to pay a premium
price for the best tools to support himself
and his people

22. 7 steps to creating a great persona
1. Write a research plan
2. Sketch up a hypothetical persona
3. Develop a recruitment questionnaire
4. Develop a discussion guide
5. Recruit subject
6. Interview 20 research candidates
7. Digest results, create persona
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23. Interview technique cheat sheet
• Clarify research goals
• Establish rapport before you begin
• Ask short, open ended questions.
– “Tell me about the last time…”, “Tell me the story
of…”
• Use active listening techniques
– “I think you said XXX. Is that right? Can you say
more about that? “, “Tell me more about XXX”,
“Why?” “Why not?”
• Let the subject lead the conversation
• Talk very little. Success = they talk 95% of the
time.
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24. Simulation
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25. Sharing!
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26. PMR for Procter and Gamble
• Long (months)
• Expensive (Millions of dollars not uncommon)
• 20-30 long sessions per market segment
• Multiple segments
• Multiple cities / multiple countries
• Subjects are paid an incentive for their time
• Often involves external research firms
=> High quality insights at a high price
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27. PMR for student projects
• Better be fast! (days)
• Entirely free
• 20-30 short sessions per research project
• Start with 1 segment
• Remove coverage via video chat
• Subjects are unpaid
• DIY
=> Quick and dirty insights to cheaply iterate to
the right problems and right solutions
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28. PMR for social enterprises
• Do as much prep work as possible remotely, via
skype interviews, google search, reading up on
reports, interviewing people who know people
who know people…
• Then go there and live there for a while and
practice ethnography for marketing.
=> You need to immerse yourself in the target
community to really understand how things work
and figure out what you don’t know.
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29. Summary
• Primary market research is a science and an art
• Primary market research is learnable
• Primary market research saves time & $ - do it!
• Plan your research before talking to anybody
• Talk to humans face to face if possible
•Get out of the building!

30. Handouts
• “Talking to Humans” E-book
• PMR Primer
• Templates and samples
– Research protocol template
– Sample discussion guide
– Sample recruitment questionnaire
– Sample photo release form
– Interview notes template
– Persona template
– Example persona project – “The Science of Clean”
(15.S16, 2H 2012)
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31. End
Questions?
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