Best advice if you’re just starting or growing a business:

Focus at your customer more than your product. Get fixed on your customer experience, and your product will keep changing to serve them best. But fix your product, and customers will find a path that fits them, with or without you.

If you’re waiting on the street corner, wondering where all your customers are, this post is for you.

We’ve moved from the industrial age where it was all about the product and productization to the technological age where it’s all about the customer and customization.

Instead of focusing at product development and production lines (which we learned about and were a part of at school), focus at customer experiences and customization lines.

Your business doesn’t start when you have a product. It starts when you have a customer. So who is your perfect customer? Start from there and ask yourself (and them):

Problem – What’s the problem they need solved?
Promise – What’s the benefit you deliver to them by solving it?
Product – How will you solve it better than others?
Proof – Why should they trust you?

Keep upgrading your answers (and your products) regularly. Because what your customers need, their expectations and how they are being served will keep changing fast. And once you get into flow, you’ll begin to know what they need before them, and they’ll begin pre-buying your next product.

“Get closer than ever to your customer. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” ~ Steve Jobs

The easiest way to future proof your business is to have customers that love you. The easiest way to fail is to love your idea or product more than you love your customers. So find your soul-market and fall in love all over again.