Driving Innovation Now - Part 2 What's the Use Case
In search of time and truth
In our first Driving Innovation Now webinar series we discussed the different types of innovation (Core, Adjacent, Disruptive) and prioritizing your ideas for accelerated learning traction and growth. Participants were asked to conduct an idea brainstorming session and organize ideas by innovation type ahead of week two.
The second session with Sean Sheppard, Founding Partner of GrowthX & GrowthX Academy we focused on What’s the Use Case for that big idea. Here are some of the key takeaways.
Define and articulate the problem
The next step in Driving Innovation Now is to figure out the big problem you’re solving and why it’s important. Simon Sinek’s famous book “Start with Why” says that great businesses know why they’re doing what they’re doing—and they use that mission as their guiding principle.
The best way to do that is to construct a value hypothesis based on the problem with a message that resonates with early customers who are experiencing the problem and then work with them in a very specific way to test your value hypothesis.
Do your best to keep your value hypothesis under twenty-five words. And use common keywords your market can understand. Remember, just because we all speak English, doesn’t mean we all speak the same language. Again, the goal is to find partners that will give you their time and the truth.
Construct an ideal customer profile
When developing your initial customer profile, you’re looking for more than a certain industry, role or title. You're looking for people with the right mindset. You’re not trying to get them to buy from you - so be clear that it is not a sales call. Your goal is to seek out people that share your vision, understand your reality and will give you the honest feedback you need about your problem, the solution and its potential value. You”re not looking for feedback on your product. No one cares about your product. They care about their problems and are only interested in solving those problems.
You want to know the pain associated with the problem; the potential gains they will achieve and how they would measure it.
Defining the use case questions
The following framework will help you quickly define how your early customers will use your product by asking these key questions..
How will they use it? (Job)
Why would they test with you? (Pain)
How will they benefit? (Gain)
How will we all know it's working? (Value Metric)
Who will you test with? (User)
Capturing value with Leading and lagging metrics
Before you begin to test your use case, you need to determine how you’re going to prove value. Because without value, you cannot monetize. There are two types of metrics used to prove value. Leading and lagging. Leading metrics are what will provide immediate value and keep people engaged and active. Lagging metrics are the value that is gained over time. You will need to know both and set the appropriate expectations with your early customer.
Do not proceed with any test until you and your early customer gain mutual agreement on how to measure results.
Finding the Innovator and Early Adopter mindset
Pull from Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm book, when entering a new market, your Buyer Personas should focus ONLY on the Innovator and Early Adopter mindsets. Find those people that care about your problem and they will be the ones that help you most. They are visionaries and have a strategic reason to invest their time and tell their truth - and they tend to have budget and influence.
When selecting early customers for testing, it's critical to understand the difference between those who have the willingness to work with you and those who have the ability. You need both to have the best chance at validating your use case.
Here are the key questions to ask when qualifying early customers
Does how they buy meet our needs right now?
Consider the BANT criteria – have we identified the four areas?
Can we meet or exceed their requirements? And ours?
What is success? Can we measure it? Can we both achieve it?
What resources and time would be required by both parties?
Is it worth it for us right now?
Optimize for learning
Finally you should prioritize early customers who will help you get the most learning in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of resources required to validate your mutually agreed upon use case.
In Part 3 of the Driving Innovation Now Series, we will discuss the metrics that matter the most; the resources required and help you turn the learnings into actionable insights that will drive the desired behavior.
Part 2 Homework:
Participants were asked to work with their teams on the following before the next session:
Define Problem
Job Pain Gain Framework
Value Hypothesis
Define Ideal Early Customer
Contact us if you would like to receive the webinar recording and be sure to follow Sean on LinkedIn and Twitter.