Make the customer feel like a Rock Star? They’ll come back.

photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/conlawprof/

Startups Require True Fans – Thanks!

I’ve been part of an Internet startup for the past 18 months – and one of my ideas was to build the Customer Experience by finding our 1000 True Fans (thank you Kevin Kelly for the inspiration.) The thinking was that by building a fan base that would help share the word and shout to the treetops, we’d be able to amplify our own messages, make some friends, and help our customers build their own personal brands as well.

Some of that work has been really successful and worked even better than we planned. And other work didn’t turn out quite as we expected. My new favorite idea is to use the teachings of Steve Blank and Brant Cooper to focus on the product-market fit – not just between the product and its market – but literally between the product and its intended customer.

3 Ways to Get to “Customer-Market” Fit

Here are three things that I’ve learned on the way to product-market fit with the customer:

1. people are lazy = play to their laziness #customermarketfit (tweet it)
2. don’t change behavior, but amplify existing behavior #customermarketfit (tweet it)
3. make someone look (and feel) like a rock star, and they’ll come back (see: turntable.fm) #customermarketfit (tweet it)

And those rules are definitely going to be integral for my next product (or startup) experience.

What ideas do you think are important to have to achieve customer-market fit? Join the conversation and post a comment.