Starting The ‘Talk to Potential Customers’ Challenge: Talking to 1,000 Potential Customers in 100 Days

Learning, Talking to Customers

I think as humans, we often take the path of least resistance and do things that come easy to us. I did that too – over the past 18 months, I built and launched two web applications without talking to any potential customers or anyone, for that matter. And they didn’t do well at all.

 

To be honest, I have my reasons for following this approach, which I plan to share in a future post. But today, I want to acknowledge that this approach is not working and that I need to do something different.

 

Here is what I plan to do instead: talk to 1000 potential customers in 100 days i.e. 10 a day.

THE RULES

  1. I have to pick a market with over 5000 businesses in my area and call them. For now, I’m going with Restaurants. 

  2. I can’t sell or offer any products or services. Which is perfect, as I don’t have any business ideas or solutions anyway.

  3. It’s okay to miss a few days due to travel or a busy schedule. The goal is not to be perfect; it’s to get started.

THE GOALS:

  1. Identify a painful problem that potential customers are facing. 

  2. Validate the problem with others in the same industry.

Now, let’s get to work.