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Build, pivot or stop after customer discovery

The decision at the end of a round of discovery interviews

Flowchart for deciding after customer discovery: three questions on the problem, workaround spend and commitments, ending in building the smallest version.
Make the call on the date you set, with the table you wrote before the first interview
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A decision path for founders at the end of a round of customer discovery. It checks whether the problem showed up unprompted, whether people already spend on a workaround and whether anyone will commit, and says what to do when each answer is no: pivot the segment or problem, stop, or pivot the solution. Use it on a decision date set before the interviews start. Koji can run the next round of interviews after a pivot.

Where this appears

What's in this flowchart

Start: Problem interviews done

  1. Mark each hypothesis held or broke. Go row by row through the table you wrote before the first interview.
  2. Did six in ten describe the problem unprompted?
    • Yes: go to 3.
    • No: Pivot the segment or the problem. Change one hypothesis and run ten more interviews.
  3. Are they already spending on a workaround?
    • Yes: go to 4.
    • No: Stop, or move to a nearby problem. Pick the problem people did spend on and start again.
  4. Test the solution with a mockup. Ask what they think it does before you explain it.
  5. Will some commit to a pilot, deposit or intro?
    • Yes: go to 6.
    • No: Pivot the solution. Keep the problem, change what you offer and test again.
  6. Finish: Build the smallest version. For the people who committed, and keep interviewing them.

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Free to use in your docs, decks and posts under CC BY 4.0, as long as you credit Koji with a link to this page. To embed it, paste this into your page:

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<a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/build-pivot-or-stop-after-customer-discovery"><img src="https://www.koji.so/visuals/build-pivot-or-stop-after-customer-discovery/build-pivot-or-stop-after-customer-discovery.png" alt="Flowchart for deciding after customer discovery: three questions on the problem, workaround spend and commitments, ending in building the smallest version." width="1200" height="1572" /></a>
<p>Source: <a href="https://www.koji.so/visuals/build-pivot-or-stop-after-customer-discovery">Build, pivot or stop after customer discovery</a>, Koji</p>

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