Customer discovery is an important phase in the startup and product development process that involves identifying and understanding potential customers and their needs. It is part of the broader [[customer development]] framework, which was popularized by Steve Blank. The primary goal of customer discovery is to validate business ideas by engaging directly with potential customers to gather insights about their problems, preferences, and behaviors. The process typically involves several key steps: 1. **Hypothesis Development**: Begin by formulating hypotheses about who your customers are, what problems they face, and how your product or service can address those problems. 2. **Customer Interviews**: Conduct interviews with potential customers to test your hypotheses. This involves asking open-ended questions to learn about their experiences, challenges and needs without directing them toward a particular solution. 3. **Problem Validation**: Determine whether the problem you aim to solve is important enough for customers to actively seek a solution. This step helps in understanding the customer's pain points more deeply. 4. **Solution Fit**: Evaluate whether your proposed solution effectively addresses the identified problem in a way that resonates with customers. 5. **Iteration**: Based on feedback from customer interactions, refine your hypotheses and adjust your product or service offering accordingly. 6. **Documentation**: Keep detailed records of all findings and insights gathered during the discovery process to inform future decisions. Customer discovery helps entrepreneurs avoid building products that may not meet market needs by ensuring there is a real demand before investing significant resources into development. It emphasizes learning from real-world interactions rather than relying solely on assumptions or secondary research. Following customer discovery, the process of [[customer validation]] further tests whether the business model is repeatable and scalable by confirming that customers are willing to pay for the solution.