Many Amazon reviewers don’t understand evidenced-based entrepreneurship. It is the new way to build a business that doubles a person’s chance for success. At its core is the customer development (CD) method developed by Steve Blank out of Silicon Valley. Trouble is CD is not easy to grasp, and this one book helps tremendously. All depends on finding the right prospect and interviewing them correctly. Cooper’s book does that well. His Chapter 8, “8 Steps to Customer Discovery”, is gold. How to find prospects, how to reach out (interview) prospects, and the problem solving fit. This book is a valuable tool for lean startup.
It is in fact so important to the development of a new lean startup venture that I am producing a second edition to Understanding Lean Startup so that it is included in the material. Cooper and Vlaskovits approach together with the CD questions of Mike Fishbein’s blog are the perfect way to discover the wants and needs of the target customer (see Publications on this website).
“This is a must read for all startups and stakeholders.”
— Steve Blank, author of The 4 Steps to the Epiphany, creator of Customer Development methodology.