Topic: Identifying target customers and defining the unique value your business offers
In your notebook: Who is our ideal customer, and what value does our product /service bring to them?
Focus on identifying target customers and defining the unique value your business offers. This aligns perfectly with understanding customer segments and creating a strong value proposition, key activities for any entrepreneur aiming to achieve product-market fit.
Key Activity Prompt for Session 3:
Research your top three competitors. Analyze their customer segments and value propositions. How does your business differ? Identify gaps in the market that your competitors aren’t addressing, and refine your own value proposition to serve these overlooked segments.
Step 1: Research and list your top three competitors. Who are their target customers, and what value do they provide?
Step 2: Identify gaps in their offerings that you can exploit. Where is there an opportunity for you to create a better or different value proposition?
Step 3: Use the Value Proposition Canvas to refine your offering. Make sure it is aligned with the specific needs and desires of your customer segments.
Step 4: Use ZERU CleverNote to track your findings, list competitors, and organize insights from your customer discovery process. Set time-based goals for testing and validating your value proposition.
Lecture: Value Proposition Design
This lecture should introduce participants to Value Proposition Design in-depth:
- Exploration of Value Propositions: What are they, and why do they matter?
Exercise: Use BMC cards to help entrepreneurs define their Value Proposition in relation to their Customer Segments. This ties back directly to the week’s focus on differentiating from competitors and addressing market gaps.
Case Study: Companies that excel in defining unique value (e.g., Apple, Airbnb, or Tesla). How do these companies clearly communicate their value propositions, and how do they align them with their customer segments?
Discussion: Why Startups Fail – Ch. 1: Poor Product-Market Fit
This discussion is a great addition because it ties directly to the week’s theme. Poor product-market fit is a primary reason startups fail, and Week 3’s activities are designed to mitigate this risk by focusing on customer research and validating the value proposition.
ZERU CleverNote: Time Management and Productivity
- Time Management Strategies: How to optimize time for conducting customer research, building a value proposition, and managing other business tasks.
- Storing Data: Use ZERU CleverNote to store competitor research, customer segment insights, and value proposition ideas for future use.
ZERU AI Coach Prompts for Session 3:
- AI-Assisted Research: Participants can use ZERU’s AI-powered tool to conduct customer discovery research by analyzing customer segments from competitors and other industry data.
- Validation: The tool helps entrepreneurs confirm that their identified customer segments are viable and provides insights into whether their value proposition aligns with customer needs.
These AI-driven prompts add practical, real-time reflection to the week’s work:
Prompt 1. Imagine your product’s usage data shows that your primary customer segment is not as active as you expected. What would you do next?
A) Survey existing customers to understand their needs better
B) Redesign your product to better serve this segment
C) Target a different segment altogether
D) Offer incentives to increase engagement
This ties directly into customer validation and understanding how to pivot based on customer activity. It pushes entrepreneurs to think about their strategy when their assumptions about customer segments are challenged.
Prompt 2. Can you help me define my customer segments based on similar companies and their customer data?
This prompt helps participants dive deeper into competitor analysis and customer segment research, directly aligning with the key activity.
