Business Spotlight 08.2019

(Nancy Kaufman) #1
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.
Free download pdf