ABSTRACT
In a start-up, it is typically the founders and product development staff that define the first product application. This is often accompanied by some general assumptions about customers and their problems. It is the job of the team responsible for the customer development process to test whether there are indeed customers. Although the entrepreneur may decide to lead the effort, a marketing or salesperson should be involved too. In the discovery and validation stages of the customer development process, this person's job will be to engage in effectual marketing and entrepreneurial selling. This early selling is part of the customer development process and involves serious learning, which unfolds through the experimentation with different market segments and prototypes. It involves a give-and-take between the person in charge and the previously identified venturesome customers. Based on valuable customer feedback, as well as discussions and decisions undertaken by the customer development team, the organisation will modify its products.
