The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development

This book, The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany By brant & Patric represents another milestone. Not only is it the first “third party” eBook about Customer Development, it raises the bar. Authors Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits have integrated the thinking of leading Customer Development practitioners and evangelists so any entrepreneur can apply them to his or her startup. They have distilled Customer Discovery into a series of steps illustrated with clear examples, concrete action items, and traps to avoid. This is a must read for all startups and their stakeholders.

The Customer Development framework is not tied to a particular business type, market segment, or product category. Company size, revenues, or location are im-material, as long as the company is planning on launching a new product. Anyone can benefit from Customer Development thinking. The philosophy applies to all entrepreneurs even though specific Customer Development processes are typically associated with those businesses just “starting up.”

Regardless of the stage your business is in, those of you most likely to pick up The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development are significantly involved in a startup technology company, either as a developer, product manager, or founder. Fundamentally, this is a book for entrepreneurs who are willing and able to question their most tightly-held business assumptions; it is for this group of people this eBook will benefit the most.

Brant Cooper helps startups get started. As a Lean Startup thought leader, he travels the world speaking to entrepreneurs at conferences, hackathons and workshops. Recent speaking events include the Kuala Lumpur Venture Capital Symposium, Lean Startup conferences in Vancouver and Michigan, the Forward Technology Conference in Wisconsin, the Lean Startup Challenge in Boston, and Lean Startup Machines in London, New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. Brant also consults for and advises startups on Lean Startups and Customer Development, with clients in Silicon Valley, New York, San Diego, France, Australia and Singapore.

Clients include Qualcomm, MOGL, HubKick, MotherKnows, i.TV, Lean Startup Machine, Discovr and many others.

Prior to becoming involved in the Lean Startup community, Brant was involved with startups in a more traditional way. He has over 20 years experience in IT and a long track record of bringing high tech products to market. As a leader in Professional Services, Product Management and Marketing, he has directed strategy, design, marketing and implementation of numerous products for a variety of startups including Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, Incode and InfoBright.

He has published articles for Venture Beat and Business Insider, blogs at Market By Numbers and tweets @brantcooper.

Patrick Vlaskovits is an entrepreneur, mentor and author. He has founded two startups (now on his third).

Patrick has spoken at tech conferences nationally and internationally, including SXSW. He blogs at http://vlaskovits.com and can be followed on Twitter @Pv. Patrick enjoys advising and mentoring and serves as a mentor for the 500 Startups seed fund/accelerator as well as for The Lean Startup Machine.

Patrick organizes Twiistup, a well-attended tech/startup conference that celebrates the entrepreneurial and investment talent of the Los Angeles startup ecosystem. He also organizes the Los Angeles Lean Startup Meetup.

Patrick holds a Master’s in Economics (emphases in finance and econometrics) from University of California, Santa Barbara. When he has spare time, he can be found with his family usually on the beach or in the ocean either fishing or surfing.