“My free trial is almost up, but I would like to continue my service with Rentalutions. How do I pay for it?”
This question was sent to us by one of our customers. The email came in late Friday evening, following what had been a week full of late nights and lots of stress. I was still at my desk at 1871; long after everyone else had left for the weekend. I stood up, did several fist pumps and thought, “f@&* yeah!”
I couldn’t wait to talk to Dylan, who handles product development, to congratulate him on building such beautiful software. I imagined a customer who was so enamored with our product that she was already calling her landlord friends telling them about how great the software is.
When Dylan and I connected, my bubble burst. I learned that the customer had, in fact, encountered several software glitches. To solve the customer’s problem, but without her knowledge, Dylan hacked things together in our system.
After understanding what happened, Dylan and I talked about why this customer is sticking around. And we talked to her.
It quickly became clear that this free-trial customer converted to a paying customer for one simple reason – our eagerness to help solve her problem (creating and editing forms for her rental property). Sure, elegant software (that we’re working towards) would have done the job, but that’s ultimately not what she wants to pay for. She wants to pay us because we can solve her problems.
Customers don’t care about software; they care about solving their problems.
This one simple lesson has several implications for start-ups:
- Always go Lean. Build a customer base on manual processes before writing a line of code. One of my favorite entrepreneurs, Jimmy Odom, and his team did this with WeDeliver. They were solving the problem of local delivery before automating things with software (now up and running). Working with customers before writing code will help you intimately understand the problem you are solving.
- The first software you release will suck. It should. You should be embarrassed – remember the famous Reid Hoffman quote about this. The software will be full of bugs and parts of your app will likely confuse customers. When working with customers, help them solve their problem first (it’s all they care about), then solicit feedback on improving the product.
- When selling your product, it’s important to focus on the problem you solve. Theodore Levitt said it best, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!" When talking with potential customers, the conversation should be dominated by the problem, not the features your product has. Frankly, customers don’t care about your software.
If you have any questions or would like to chat about anything in this post, let me know. I love this stuff.
About the Author
Ryan is one of the founders of Rentalutions, a business that helps do-it-yourself landlords easily manage their rental properties. Since launching, Rentalutions has attracted landlords from across the United States. You can follow Ryan on Twitter at @ryanmcoon. Rentalutions can be followed at @rentalutions.
