Business Spotlight 08.2019

CAREERS & MANAGEMENT 6/2019 Business Spotlight 71

Fotos: Rawpixel/iStock.com; privat

INTERVIEW

“You need to go out and talk to people”

How have you gone about find-

ing out what your customers

want or need?

I think what surprised me is in

how structured a manner you can

go about it. Steve Blank’s book

The Startup Owner’s Manual offers a

framework that takes you through

the process step by step, and it’s al-

ways got a feedback loop. As long

as you take feedback on board,

what you build is a little bit bet-

ter every time. One of the biggest

mistakes is to think that you know

what customers want. So, Blank

says you need to do two things.

First of all, find a real problem: Are you actually solving a

problem that matters to enough people to make a difference?

Once you understand the problem, you need to ask: What is

a solution that actually solves that problem effectively? It

sounds simple, but any business comes down to this, and too

often, entrepreneurs assume they know the answer to both

questions. The first part is to understand that everything you

put down is a hypothesis — and then you need to go out and

talk to people.

How do you find the right people to talk to?

We started with people we knew, but every time we inter-

viewed someone, we asked them if they knew someone else

who fit these criteria, until we had put together a list of about

50 people we thought made up a representative sample. Then

we started having interviews with them. We started off with

our own hypotheses, and then we tried to validate or refute

them.

Can you give an example?

One of the hypotheses we had was that claims are a real prob-

lem. But when we spoke to people, they said, “Yeah, it’s a bad

process, but what really makes me angry is when I make a

claim and an insurer turns around and says, ‘No, you’re not

covered for that event.’ Because it means I paid for a year or

two without being fully covered.” The real problem, therefore,

was advice: The customer didn’t really know what they had

bought. So our hypothesis was wrong. Claims aren’t the issue;

advice is the issue.

How have you used customer feedback to develop your

product?

We worked toward creating an MVP, a minimum viable prod-

uct — the smallest version possible of the complete product

— so we could quickly get it out to more people to get more

feedback. In this test phase, we opened up the app to the

public, and we continue to get feedback. We are beginning

to understand how people use the app. For example, we see

quotes coming at eight to nine o’clock at night, so the people

are using the app after hours, not when people normally see

a broker.

Now, we are in this classic sales funnel phase. Many peo-

ple have downloaded our app, yet only some of those people

have accepted that first mandate screen, so there’s a bit of a

drop-off there. Only so many people have requested a quote,

and only some of those people have converted the quote into

live policies. We need to understand each drop — and that’s

a nice problem to have because we’ve got data, and we can

start working with it. There is nothing more rewarding than

seeing complete strangers using our app and finding it useful.

after hours

[)Äft&r (aU&rz*]

, nach Geschäftsschluss

assume sth.

[E(su:m*]

, etw. annehmen

broker [(broUk&r*]

, Makler(in)

claim [kleIm]

, hier: Versicherungsfall

co-founder

[(koU )faUnd&r*]

, Mitgründer(in)

come down to sth.

[)kVm (daUn tu]

, auf etw. hinauslaufen

drop-off [(drA:p O:f*]

, Abfall, Rückgang

entrepreneur

[)A:ntrEprE(n§:*]

, Unternehmer(in)

go about sth.

[)goU E(baUt*]

, etw. angehen

household insurance

[)haUshoUld

In(SUrEns*]

, Wohngebäude- und

Hausratversicherung

insurer [In(SUr&r*]

, Versicherungs-

gesellschaft

issue [(ISu:]

, Problem, Thema

live [laIv]

, hier: tatsächlich

loop [lu:p]

, Schleife

make a difference

[)meIk E (dIfrEns]

, etw. bewirken

on board: take sth. ~

[)A:n (bO:rd*] ifml.

, hier: etw. einbeziehen

policy [(pA:lEsi*]

, Police

quote [kwoUt*]

, Angebot

refute sth.

[ri(fju:t]

, etw. widerlegen

sales funnel

[(seI&lz )fVn&l]

, Verkaufstrichter

sample [(sÄmp&l*]

, Probe; hier: Auswahl

validate sth.

[(vÄlIdeIt]

, etw. bestätigen

viable [(vaIEb&l]

, machbar;

hier: marktfähig

PIETER VENTER is a

co-founder of Ctrl,

South Africa’s first

independent car and

household insurance

advice app.