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Topic map / Customers and the work

Demand and problem validation

Substantial

8 questions

The Bocconi record of Camuffo and colleagues describes four trials and 759 firms, and a positive impact on terminating an idea. Migdał’s Quesma postmortem makes a related practical point from one company: verbal interest did not become use. Treat both as reasons to ask for a costly action.

  1. 1.What costly action has a real customer already taken?

  2. 2.What did you predict would happen, and what happened instead?

  3. 3.Which recent conversation was a compliment rather than evidence?

    Pass 2 · strengthened

    A compliment is weaker than a customer action that costs them something. That action still does not, by itself, prove they will buy.

  4. 4.What result this month would show the problem is not worth building for?

  5. 5.Who has the budget, and who only has the pain?

  6. 6.How often does the problem occur, in their words and in a number you could check?

  7. 7.What did you change in the offer after the last five conversations?

  8. 8.What are you building because you like the solution?

Sources

  • Research2024

    A scientific approach to entrepreneurial decision-making: large-scale replication and extension · Camuffo, Gambardella, Messinese, Novelli, Paolucci and Spina, Strategic Management Journal

    The Bocconi record of the paper describes four randomised trials and 759 firms. It reports a positive impact on idea termination, and that treated firms tended to run a few pivots rather than none or repeated pivots. The abstract on the cited page does not state a percentage-point figure, so this site does not either.

  • Community4 November 2025

    A postmortem on our $2.5 million database gateway · Jacek Migdał, Quesma

    A founder’s account of raising $2.5 million, staying in pilots, splitting with a cofounder, and selling the technology. He argues for a concrete customer action, not only verbal interest. His account is not a base rate.