Mike Lyons explains why 40% of products fail within two years: teams build what they assume customers want instead of what they actually need. He walks through three tools for real customer understanding: Personas, Empathy Maps, and the Value Proposition Canvas, using Uber as an example to show how to map customer jobs, pains, and gains to actual product features.
Products tend to fail when we build what we think customers want instead of what they actually need. Come on, you piece of junk. There was a study I read not too long ago that showed that about 40% of products fail within two years of launch, largely because they don't solve real customer problems. It suggests that success starts with understanding our customers deeply. This understanding must go beyond sort of surface level features to the core of what drives customer decisions. There's a bunch of different ways to gain this deep customer understanding. We're going to look at a few here, and then we're going to give you a tool you can put into practice. Okay, the first one is user Personas. User Personas bring our customers to life as realistic characters. Good Personas include background information and behavioral patterns and specific scenarios that show how the person would interact with our product. They help the teams maintain a consistent view of who they're building for. Okay, pro tip here. Personas aren't just demographic profiles. Consider these demographics. For example, male, born in 1948, raised in the UK, married twice, lives in a castle, wealthy and famous. Okay, well, that could be King Charles or Ozzy Osbourne, and you'd build your product differently for Ozzy Osbourne than you would for King Charles. So in most cases, demographics alone is probably not quite enough information to generate a unique Persona. Okay, here's another one. Empathy maps. Empathy maps help us get inside our customers heads. They capture what customers think, what they feel, what they see, say, do, and hear. This tool can reveal both spoken and unspoken needs. When creating an empathy map, we document customer behaviors in four different quadrants. What they say and do in public versus what they think and feel privately. In this contrast, it often reveals important insights. The empathy map shows us gaps between what customers say they want and what they actually need. It helps identify unstated requirements that could make or break our product's success. These tools, they're valuable. But the Value Proposition Canvas stands out as particularly powerful. It combines customer understanding with direct links to our solution. The Value Proposition Canvas has two main sections, the customer profile and the value map. Think of them as two puzzle pieces that need to fit together perfectly. Let's use Uber as an example while I explain the canvas, the customer profile that helps us understand three key aspects of our customer segment. Customer jobs. Well, these are the tasks, problems, and needs that our customers are trying to solve. They can be functional, emotional, or even social. At Uber, these jobs included getting from point A to B reliably and quickly, traveling safely, especially at night, and booking transportation on demand with Limited planning. Well, then we have customer pains. These represent the negative experiences, emotions and risks our customers face when trying to complete their jobs. Uber identified key pains like difficulty finding taxis during peak times or in rain, uncertainty about costs and arrival times, and even safety concerns with traditional taxis. Okay. Finally we have gains. These are the positive outcomes and benefits that we want our customers to experience. Uber's customers wanted quick and reliable transportation access, transparent pricing and arrival times, and safe vetted transportation options. Okay, the next section is the value map which also has three aspects that directly correspond to our customer profile. First, we have our products and services. This is the actual offering what you're building or providing to your customers. Uber created an on demand ride hailing platform with real time driver tracking and eta Systems and 24,7 availability through their driver network. Okay. Next we have pain relievers. These are the specific features that eliminate or reduce customer pains. For Uber it was having a large network of available drivers nearby, upfront pricing with real time tracking and comprehensive driver background checks and a rating system. Okay. And finally we have gain creators. These are ways your product delivers benefits that customers desire. Uber delivered by ensuring average pickup times under 5 minutes, implementing GPS based fare calculations and providing in app safety features and driver identification. The brilliance of Uber's approach lies in how precisely they match their solution to customer needs. For instance, the pain of price uncertainty was directly addressed by upfront pricing. While safety concerns were met with driver background checks and real time tracking. The key is achieving fit. When our value map directly addresses the most important elements of our customer profile, we validate fit through customer research and feedback. This isn't a one time exercise. Customer needs evolve and we've got to continually check our assumptions. The value proposition canvas helps us stay focused on what matters most. Creating products that truly serve our customers needs rather than just adding features. Great products aren't built on assumptions. They're built on deep customer understanding. Your customers, they'll tell you what they need. You just need to be willing to listen.
