Welcome back
In this session,
we are going to go through the consumer's discovery
So if you do not want to waste your time and energy and money
to address a non-existing problem or in the wrong timing,
you should go through this process very well
So what is the consumer discovery?
Let's define this concept
Consumer discovery
refers to the process of identifying your target consumers
and understanding their problems, their needs, their behavior
before you build your product actually
You know what I mean?
The purpose of the consumer discovery
is not to sell your product or services but to learn from your consumers
So from this process,
you can understand if your startup truly addresses consumers' needs
That is very important
And also you can check out your assumption about consumers' needs
And by doing so, you are able to minimize your risk,
minimize the risk of the building product no one wants
If you skip this process,
then probably you can build your product and services
Provide your services with your consumers
but no one wants your services. Then you fail
So how to do, how to conduct the consumer discovery?
The first one you need to understand,
consumer discovery process is kind of cyclical
Cyclical means you need to define your hypothesis
and receive the feedback from the consumer
and you redefine your hypothesis again and again
And anyway, so you go through this process back and forth
And then you need to focus on your problems, not the solution
So you just forget about your solution
You just focus on your problem that you found
Then you just check your assumption is right or wrong
And also, you prioritize earlyvangelists
Have you heard about the term of earlyvangelists?
It's a complicated term
Earlyvangelists refers to an early adopter
But it's not just a simple early adopter
Those early adopters are not only using your product early
but also actively promote and provide the feedback to yourself
That is a very, how can I say,
they are very active, very active early adopters
Among the early adopters, there are very active early adopters
So it's a very specialized group
This group is called as what?
Earlyvangelists
So where does the term of early adopters come from?
Early adopters, the term of the early adopters has a long history
Look at this
Professor Eve Rogers created this term in 1960s
and he published the book, Diffusion of Innovation
And this book became a steady seller book
And then in his seminal 1962 book,
he suggests the new concept of early adopter
Early adopter is kind of people who begin using new product,
technology, or ideas soon after your introduction
As you can see in the picture,
Dr. Rogers proposed that
the users of the new idea or new product
can be categorized as several different subgroups,
which is the innovator, early adopter, or early majority,
and late majority, and laggards
So the early adopters, I think the early adopters
Early adopter account for around 13.5%
among 100% of the consumer's group
So which category are you belong to?
What do you think? Me?
Personally, I belong to around the late majority or laggards
I never accept any new idea or new product
I never accept it
Okay, this is me
Think about you
So this is early adopter
And what about earlyvangelist?
Steve Blank, do you know Steve Blank?
Steve Blank is a very famous businessman in Silicon Valley,
and he started many businesses successfully,
and then he's really good at writing and speaking
So many startups in Silicon Valley were
influenced by his concept about entrepreneurship
Then he published many best-selling books,
and this is one of his books, right, in 2005
In 2005, he published this book, which is Four Steps to Epiphany
Have you heard the name of the Epiphany?
That is a kind of complicated word
Epiphany means kind of emergence, emergence
So there are four steps to emergence
Look at the picture
It's a kind of emergence of the human being
Anyway, so in this book, he created the term of earlyvangelist
Earlyvangelist is a combination of early and the evangelist
Have you heard about the evangelist?
If you are Christian,
you may be familiar with the term of evangelist
Evangelist means
there is someone who spread out the idea to somebody else
So if you are Christian, then
evangelist means you are the person who spread out
the Christianity to the other people
Christian kind of mission, idea to other people, something like that
This is evangelist
Anyway, so he created the new term from
the combination of early adopter and evangelist
So the earlyvangelist means,
earlyvangelist means the special types of early adopter
It means this, earlyvangelist
not only adopt a new product like an early adopter,
but also willing to take a risk,
actively promote the product
and help validate and improve your product and service
So if you target to the earlyvangelist, they will be really great helper
Because they validate your idea
It's good
So you can easily check out whether your idea is validated or not
Let's move on
Have we heard about the Slack?
Slack is, global, the team communication tool
This is a very successful tool
We will talk about how Slack started later
Anyway, the Slack at the first time, focused on earlyvangelist
And then who would be earlyvangelist of the Slack?
The early evangelist has several, characteristics
Earlyvangelist should have a problem
And also earlyvangelist are aware of having a problem
And also earlyvangelist have been actively
looking for a solution by themselves
And earlyvangelist, try to assemble a solution by themselves
And also earlyvangelist has acquired the budget,
to provide their own solution
But those characteristics made earlyvangelist
So the earlyvangelist,
Slack's earlyvangelist are kind of tech savvy teams
Mostly in startup or mostly in small company, tech company
And they are actively looking for some
better solution for their teamwork
And also they already did the experiment for their problems
So the major problem that they face
when they work together inside the team is that,
They don't want to rely on email communication
or they don't want to rely on the other message service
They want to share their file
They want to report their task very quickly to their boss
And then they want to collaborate together
in and out of the company
Something like that
The other alternative solutions cannot satisfy their need
So that's why, Slack's earlyvangelist try to fix them by themselves
Then finally Slack provide greater solution for them
So that's why they adopted the Slack, very early as an early adopter
And also they spread out the Slack service to somebody else
and try to provide, the constructive feedback to the Slack team
So that's why, Slack was very successful because of the earlyvangelist
This is the power of earlyvangelist
So there are basically two very important methods for your consumer discovery
Other than these two methods, there are several methods, but they are minor
And we are going to talk about major methods for the consumer discovery
The first one is problem interview
Interview is pretty simple
You just ask several questions to your potential consumers
and you receive the opinion
Then you can use the opinion
Then, considering the consumer's opinion,
you just redefine your hypothesis again and again
This is a pretty simple process
And second thing is, consumer journey map
Consumer journey map, it looks complicated
We are going to talk about what it is
Let's begin with the problem interview first
What is interview?
You just discover consumer's pain point before you
pitch your solution to the consumers
And simply just ask, simply ask the open-end questions
and focus on consumer's past behavior, not future guess
You do not ask, what happened later
You just ask, what did you do?
What did you do the past three months?
Something like that
So, luckily, there is a template
The problem interview template provided by Steve Blank
He already prepared for the interview template as well
I just introduced his template
The first one, when you go to interview your consumers
and you prepare for the introduction
Introduction is one or two minutes about yourself
and you just tell them who you are and the purpose of the interview
I conducted this interview because of ABC reason
It takes one or two minutes
And second stage is, you provide contextualized background
such as, you just ask the person and their environment
Then you share the idea together
For example, what tools or what process do you
currently use to kind of do it
or to fix it, to solve this problem, something like that
And third step, problem exploration
So, in this stage, you dig into the real problem and pain point
You just simply ask your potential consumers
What is the hardest part?
What is the difficult part about this task or this problem?
And third, the fourth step is
you just ask your consumers
about existing alternatives or behaviors
From this stage, you can understand what they are doing now
For example, you just simply ask them,
what are the tools or service have you tried?
What are the tools? What could be your alternatives?
Then you're done and you just close your interview
with a closing ment or follow up
For example, you ask if they are like to be
notified when you launch your services
For example, you just add up like this
Can I reach out, with the follow up questions?
Or are you willing to
are you willing to use my new service or not?
At last comment
I will give you the real startup example
This startup is Quanda
Quanda simply stands for question and answer
Question and answer
So we make a simplified, the Quanda
So the Quanda, was started by these two, the college students
One of them graduated from Hanyang University
They met together in high school,
which is the science specific high school,
which is a very great high school in Incheon
They met together in this high school in Incheon
And then one guy entered the Seoul National University
and the other guy entered Hanyang University majoring in, of course, engineering
And then they started their businesses
The business was pretty simple
Iif you have complicated math questions
Mathematics, math question
Then you try to solve this question
Sometimes, you don't know how to solve this question properly
So probably you are stuck
when you meet a very difficult question
Then there is no solution
You don't know how to fix this problem
And you spend tons of time
You put tons of energy, but you cannot solve this problem
So is there any alternatives to solve this problem?
So that's why they provide
the mobile-based very unique solution,
which is a Qanda service
You just simply open up your mobile application
And if you have a difficult math problem,
and you just simply take a picture
of this simple, this complicated math problem
Then later what happens?
Your mobile phone shows you the right answer immediately,
just one or two seconds later
Wow, it looks like magic
It's magic
There are many technologies in it
Anyway
These guys created this
leading AI-powered education startup
developed by Matpresso
Matpresso is the company name
Qanda is kind of a service name
And this service is AI-based optical character recognition
They used AI-based OCR technology
to solve this problem
Again, take a picture and just show the solutions
This app simply scans the problem
and provides a step-by-step solution within seconds, like magic
Anyway, so before they actually started this business,
probably they might conduct a consumer interview
So without proving the consumer needs,
nobody can start the right startup
So that's why probably they already conducted
the problem interview like this
So I made some kind of situation
hypothetically through the AI webtoon style
Before we look at the problem interview,
I would like you guys to watch the Qanda service introduction
This is a short video clip,
and it will be very helpful for you to understand
what Qanda is and how it works
Let's watch together
So what do you think?
Now you understand what Qanda is and how it works
Let's move to the problem interview
There are two Qanda teams
So Qanda team are the founders,
and probably they met one of the end users
Let's say he is a high school student,
and he was studying at the library
So Qanda team visited him in the library,
and they said that as an introduction,
Hi, we are Qanda team doing research
to better understand how people like you deal with math question
Wow, that is a purpose
And we are not trying to sell anything, but just
we are looking to learn from your experience
That is a good introduction
Then later probably they asked this question,
what is the hardest part?
What is the hardest part about something related to the math question?
What is the hardest part?
To understand the real pain point from the consumers
And then the consumer said that,
The high school student probably replied to the answer
Yeah, I often face the frustration
when I stuck on difficult math question
Then Qanda team said that what about tutoring service?
There is a tutoring service available out there
So you can use alternative service
You can use a great solution
So why you don't solve this problem?
This is kind of question
Then the high school student probably replied this way
Traditional, tutoring service is expensive
Of course, expensive
And also the location bounded, location bound
I lived in the suburban area,
but qualified tutors lived in metropolitan area
There is a huge distance
I cannot drive my car, something like that
And also, it is the tutoring service is limited to the schedule
So we should meet together on the promise
It's not easy
So the Qanda team asked again
what other tools or service have you tried?
What are tools or services?
And then probably the student replied,
I joined the online community to solve this same problem
and to share the experience together,
the other guys, the other student
But it was not quite helpful because it will take time
I need immediate solution
But if I go to the online community
to get the right answer,
probably you should wait for a long time
And another problem is nobody knows how to solve this problem
Because all of them are kind of students
So the Qanda team closed this interview
So would you be open to seeing
something we are working on down the line?
Why not?
I think this is a great hypothetical
hypothetical situation about the problem interview
So please report to this kind of situation
Then you can use this situation, this Webtoon style process,
apply this problem interview to your real situation, your case
I hope it will be very helpful for you
Let's move on to another method, which is very important
A little bit complicated, though
But, please remember the name of Consumer Journey Mapping
Consumer Journey Map
And people said that it is a CGM
Consumer Journey Map
So the Consumer Journey Map,
we use the Consumer Journey Map in order to understand
the full experience consumers go through
when trying to solve their problem
So basically, we treat ourselves as consumers
To solve their problem
So the Consumer Journey Map visualizes the consumers'
step-by-step experience across all touch points
So basically, you walk a mile in your consumers' shoes
Put yourself into consumers' shoes
Now you understand what it is
Basically, there are instructions
The first step is you need to define user persona
Have you heard about the user persona?
User persona is kind of hypothetical, your ideal consumers
Who are they? You just imagine them
Who would be my consumers?
And what kind of motivation do they have?
What kind of goal do they have?
What is their habit?
What is their behavior?
What is their kind of personality?
Something like that. You just imagine
For example, I don't know what is your startup,
but you can imagine like this
Our user persona would be Olivia
Olivia
She is 29 years old, and she is a freelancer,
and she wants to provide invoice
to her client very fast
because her client asked her to provide this invoice paper very fast
That is kind of her motivation
to search for the solution about that
This is a kind of persona
So you know how to create a user persona
Just imagine them
And second step is
you list the journey stage of the consumers
Like this
From awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy
Kind of those five. Those five steps
Those five stages are kind of the traditional stage of the consumers
So third, of course, you need to collect the data
from the interview or from the reviews
or from the kind of blog or paper or opinion, or post
You collect all of the data
In order to understand your consumer's journey map,
your consumer's journey stage
Then later, you fill in actions, thoughts,
emotions, and figure out consumer's pain point
You can use your kind of a simple post-it card
That's it
And your messaging, your quote,
your quote should be aligned with direct quote from real consumers
It could be very helpful
And the last one, you highlight insight
and you just come up with your opportunities based on this process
I want to give you an example about the consumer journey map
It looks complicated, but just follow me
It can be very easy
The first one, do you remember the first step?
Yes, you need to identify your user persona
You define your user persona and his or her goal
Let's imagine who is your consumers for Airbnb service
Let's say Sarah
She is a sales manager, and she is right now 34 years old
And she lives in kind of metropolitan area,
and she uses a mobile phone a lot
And she loves using kind of a new technology
She is an active user of Instagram or something like that
She is Sarah
And what is her favorite?
Her favorite is traveling
When she has time and money,
then she loves traveling
kind of big cities like New York City
Think about it
This is Sarah
It's your user persona
Second step is you list the journey stage of Sarah
Journey stage started from
awareness, consideration, and the purchase
And after purchase, what happened?
You keep using this service
And then later, what happened?
You just introduced this service to your friend
This is advocacy
So from the awareness to the advocacy
Those five stages would be typical consumer journey stages
You list the consumer journey stages
Then later you collect data
Probably you go outside and meet a person like Sarah
and just conduct the interview
and then understand her pain point
Or you just Google it
and just use the review or read the review
or read the opinion or read the article, something like that
You collect all the data, quantitative and qualitative, anything, anything fine
Then later, you feed in the actions, the thought, the emotions, and the pain point
Like this
The first one, you list the consumer journey from awareness to the advocacy
So the first one, action,
you feel in the action based on the consumer stage
Awareness, what happened
Sara has a plan to travel New York City
It's doable
Then in the awareness stage,
Sarah opened up the Google,
then later probably searched for the relevant hotels
She searched, kind of a cheap hotel is in New York City
because the hotel fee is very expensive in New York,
so probably she searched the cheap hotels in New York City
Then later, she will compare three or four hotels in the consideration stage
She opened three or four hotel websites, compared them
Compared the location, compared the prices,
compared the services
Then later, she made a purchase
She tried to pay online through the mobile phone
Because she used the mobile phone a lot
Then later, what happened?
So payment done
Then what happened?
Probably she received a confirmation email from the hotel
or from some of the websites
So the email included some of the check-in dates
and the service details, something like that
Then later,
she will leave the review on the website,
After finishing traveling
This is kind of the advocacy stage
Then later, you write down kind of Sarah's thought
You assume you are Sarah, and then
you put yourself into Sarah's shoes
Then you write down Sarah's thought
In the awareness stage,
probably Sarah thought that many options
Wow, there are many options, but expensive
And also, the hotel services
are divided by two groups
Very expensive hotels and very ugly motels
Wow, there's nothing normal
Or nothing between
This is kind of Sarah's thought
And what about Sarah's thought in the consideration stage?
Yeah, when I compare the prices and service between the hotels,
I notice that there are different formats and different websites, different styles
it's really a little bit
not comfortable to compare each hotel
And in the purchase stage,
Sarah tried to pay through the mobile phone,
but is the mobile phone working properly?
Let's try
This is kind of Sarah's thought
And what about the retention stage?
When Sarah received the email from the hotel and Sarah thought that,
My reservation is properly done
Why not? Is it working?
Okay, fine
And then the advocacy stage, Sarah thought that,
oh my god, I just forgot to leave the review
because there is no benefit
It's done
This is kind of a typical process of
Sarah's journey to the hotel
Then later, you think Sarah's feeling
You just imagine,
Sarah's feeling in this stage. Each stages
The first one in the awareness stage is Sarah's feeling hopeful
so I will go to New York City
Oh my god, I'm really happy
she tried to search the cheaper hotels
Hopeful
And what about consideration stage?
I'm confused
There are so many options and also it's difficult to compare
And what about the purchase stage?
so I tried to pay through the mobile phone
but I failed one time, I failed two times
Oh my god, I feel frustrated
And retention,
I'm not sure whether my booking is well done or not
It's anxious
And then advocacy stage,
I don't have any feeling
Neutral
Right now, you got the Sarah's feeling, hypothetical Sarah's feeling
You imagine that
Then, based on these feelings
These feelings,
you think about Sarah's real pain point
What it is?
In the awareness stage, Sarah feels hopeful
But there is a pain point
What is that?
There are too many options
and to divide the group of hotels and unclear prices
And this is kind of the pain point
In the consideration stage, probably
Sarah's worry about the hidden fees and poor user interface
In the purchase stage, mobile phone crashed
This is a pain point
Mobile payment crashed many times
And the retention stage,
the retention stage pain point is that
Sarah never received any proper service
proper information from the hotel
This is a kind of pain point
Advocacy stage, there's no benefit
So, why should I leave the messaging?
Why should I leave the review?
I'm sorry, leave the review
No benefit
Basically, no time to leave the review
This is Sarah's pain point
Then, if you have a pain point,
then right now, it is a good time for you
to identify opportunity out of pain point
What it is
In the awareness stage,
you may simplify pricing
or you may simplify review process or filtering
And if you provide some kind of filtering function
to make a simple process,
then you can satisfy Sarah's need
You can reserve Sarah's pain point in this stage
What about consideration stage?
You can use some kind of transparent pricing
and you can provide clean UI or user friendly UI
Then with this effort,
you can reserve Sarah's pain point
What about purchase stage?
Sarah's pain point in the purchase stage is that
mobile payment crashed a lot
So, you provide mobile first design, and avoid this crash
Then you can reserve Sarah's pain point in this stage
What about retention stage?
Retention stage,
Sarah never received any support email, support information
So you have opportunity
We can send out the SMS, short message,
and also we can provide the chatbot to support
Sarah's concern
And the last one in last stage,
Sarah doesn't have any incentive, any benefit
when she leave the message
So, that's why she didn't leave the message, didn't leave the review
So, in this area,
we can provide relevant incentive for her
Then, she will leave the review
So, the kind of a review incentive
What do you think?
I think this process is very systematic
And you can go through this process,
then you can easily find out the consumer discovery
So, you avoid some problems
What do you think? It's good?