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First Customer Contact

#1

" Go only when you’re ready… [but] don’t wait until you’re 100% ready, because you will probably never be 100% ready.”"

  • Edward Amartey-Tagoe, Founder of Nandimobile, MEST Incubator

First customer contact can mean very different things for different businesses. It could be a product launch or it could be your first meeting with a large company. Either way, it’s almost always a critical moment. This is when you start to turn unknown unknowns, things you didn’t know you needed to know, into known unknowns, things you know will drive your business forward. This is where you start to learn how much you need to do to get your business ready for prime time.

In this lesson, we’ll learn from:

  • Edward Amartey-Tagoe, founder of Nandimobile, a customer service automation tool for mobile networks in Ghana
  • Femi Akinde, founder of Slimtrader, an online ticketing and payment solution for airlines in Nigeria
  • Arthur Zang, founder of Cardiopad, a system that allows remote doctors to perform specialised diagnostics in Cameroon

First Contact: Other Businesses

Often, the most time consuming aspect of getting that first meeting with another business is establishing the relationships which get you in the door. A common approach is to use existing networks to get that connection.

When that’s not enough, don’t be afraid to just introduce yourself.

The most essential element of making a great first impression is framing the relationship as being fundamentally reciprocal, meaning everyone involved benefits. Doors open when it’s clear to them that you’re someone who can solve their problems.

This worked for Femi Akinde, founder of Slim Trader, one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing tech companies, and for Edward, who started a relationship with Tigo, a major Ghanaian telecom, as his first customer. Sure, the airline and telecom companies they were meeting with were many times larger than they were, but that didn’t change the fact that they had something valuable to offer.

For those two entrepreneurs, it came down to being confident and upfront when discussing the problems of these large companies and what they could do to help. The transparency of the interactions made it easy for both sides to see the benefits and say yes.

#Don’t underestimate your own network
Now that Nandimobile and Slimtrader are established, new entrepreneurs look at their story and say, “it was easy for them, they already had the right connections.” But when they tell their story, they didn’t think so. They were stuck too. They had to step back, look at their network and find a way in. Femi asked around. Edward was part of the MEST school, so asked the faculty if they could invite some telecoms for him.

And Arthur? He realised early that he already had a well-connected ally who could champion him in the right medical associations, his professor!

Your customers always surprise you

“Software entrepreneurs spend too much time behind PCs and laptops. Truthfully, most of the major milestones we had were not because of our superior engineering, but because of the people we met and the impact we made… People should get out there… meet people. The answer to your problem might be in someone else’s head, and one phone call could change your business.” - Edward Amartey-Tagoe, Founder of Nandimobile, MEST Incubator

Your first interaction with potential customers is rarely a smooth process. Doing this right requires using an open mind to understand those consumers. This often means understanding just how wrong your initial assumptions were, so be prepared for change your perspective on a lot of things. It means watching and listening carefully, and making big adjustments, all while maintaining trust and momentum.

Arthur Zang is the creator of Cardiopad, a device that allows rural doctors to run specialised heart tests with the help of heart specialists sitting hundreds of miles away. Early customer contact surprised him. He designed a single medical device that could be used by the rural doctors and by specialists in the capital. When he finally had a device they could use, he learned that he had 3 distinct users. The local nurses needed something much easier to operate while they were interacting with patients. The local doctors needed certain information, and the specialists needed complex reporting. He went back to develop different software for each.

Edward’s big realisation was that certain common questions accounted for 70% of his customer service team’s time. At that point, he knew exactly what parts of his idea were valuable to the telecoms, and started to customise his solution with the right questions and answers. The product was designed directly for the people who would use it, so when they encountered it for the first time, it would predict their needs. As a result, he was able to grow Nandimobile into a national player with major corporate customers like Astral Integral. The company now has the size and the reliable growth necessary for him to transfer out of active management and to invest his time in new endeavors.

We identified what the problem was, what the solution was, and what they were willing to pay.

  • Femi Akinde, founder of Slimtrader

Equipped with this knowledge of exactly why the customers found value in their innovations, both Edward and Femi were able to confidently negotiate deals with big companies. And each founder, having seen their product in the hands of their users, knew what really worked and what didn’t.

These founders had their eyes open and were ready to evolve. They learned from first customer contact.

Exercise: what’s your first customer contact?

Let’s take a moment to get to know each other.

Press reply below (create an account if you need to) and share your story of first customer contact. What did you bring to them? What did you learn from them?

If you haven’t started yet, let us know how you can meet a potential customer, and how will you learn what really matters to them so they’ll engage with you?

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#2

I hope to become a pure I.T person gradually but for now I’m learning and same about becoming an entrepreneur. my first encounter with a company which I can describe as a first customer situation was a cosmetics company who wanted me to manage their social media platforms for them.
the deal is still not done because I’m out of Accra but in my first talk with the CEO, she asked me what do they need to do to get the pages active? I then told her firstly, the pages must be regularly updated with information about their products something related which will increase customers and potential customers interest about the page and eventually, the products.

On what I want to bring on board if I’m giving the job as the social media manager: I made it known to her that, apart from managing the pages to increase followers and converting them into customers, there are other online platforms for marketing products and services known as, affiliate marketing where her cosmetic products could be sold outside of Ghana on an online stores outside of Ghana where the store owners will get a percentage for every product sold which in returns widens the reach of the product and sales as well.
After our conversation, I released the CEO was impressed about the affiliate marketing and she is ready to wait for my return to Accra to hand me the job.
So in short, to make a fortune out of first customer meeting is to get prepared and to get prepared means to always learn about that thing you intend to make a living from.

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#3

Thanks for sharing! This story is common, but always great to hear. We approach the customer thinking we know what they want, but then learn from their needs and perspective, it’s something similar but not exactly what we thought. Meeting them where they are in their thinking helps us get started together. We’ll cover this in more detail in next week’s lesson on Unbiased Opinion, but feel free to jump ahead.

#4

Thank you very much Salim for appreciating

#5

I’m the founder of Source. I thought I’d share a story from my early days as an entrepreneur, where I grew up in Canada.

Ten years ago, I started a company selling business centres to hotels.

Our first ten hotels were signed up through door-to-door hustle. My partner and I would wheel in a little desk with our computer system into the hotel lobby. Our system was more stable than the web kiosks they had. We offered office and multimedia software installed, and the hotel could even charge for printing. We understood the benefits and the customers’ language.

“This is better than your web kiosk since it attracts business travelers with a professional office suite, and with a revenue share, it will increase your revenue per room.”

One day, we wheeled the computer in, ran our pitch, and the front-desk manager went over the general manager.

She said, “These guys can fix our USB key problem.”

The USB key problem is when a hotel guests asks someone at the front desk to print some documents from their USB key. At busy check-in times, this takes a critical person from the front desk. Everyone gets stressed. And it happens every day. We knew of this problem, we just hadn’t realised it was so important that it eclipsed everything else we did.

Hearing this changed everything.

It changed how we sold. The next hotel we walked in saying, “we can fix your USB key problem.”

It changed our product. We’d focused on features for hotel revenue, like charging for printing. I’d just spent 2 months building and testing this. Now, we erased that feature, and made printing included in the hourly charge.

It changed our business model. We had first thought our superior business centre belonged in the 4- and 5-star hotels. Now we knew it was for 2- and 3-star hotels. Because they’re the hotels with fewer staff and less capability to handle time-consuming guest requests.

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#6

Hi Salim can get your personal e-mail? thanks

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#7

As an individual, before I would look into meeting a potential customer, I will look in the following three ideas and these are DISCOVERY, INVENTING and MODIFICATION of the products they need. Let me give an example of I having intentions of starting up a chicken project and in comparison of a chicken project with the above stated three criteria of my approach would be as follows;
DISCOVERY: discovering something which already exists but its existence has not been known before. This would seem the most difficult part in this all; however, it requires one to set aside their interests and focus on the interest of the customer. One has to completely turn themselves off from how much they are to receive from the customer and focus on that which the customer intended wants to consume. When it comes to chicken, consumers want to consume big, heavy in weight and healthier birds. Now, the problem here is business competitors in chicken projects just focus on feeding of the birds and after they are matured to the level they opt to sell them off and assume that is all, fellow stakeholders, that is so wrong of you of that attitude. This is what you have to look into to reach the customers’ expectation for you to have them captured. Double the chicken feeds from the usual for you ought to remember that exotic chicken feed day and night and never get fed up of feeding, be consistent when it comes to vaccination schedules and never miss out any dates for vaccinations.
However; this you should and must take not of that it is going to cost you much more than what your other competitors are spending for exactly a similar business but never loose heart for you are making a difference and going to cause a greater impact in the long run that by the time you fellows will realize how you do it, you will be an extra mile before them and almost capturing all their market from all directions.
INVENTING: inventing something which did not exist before. An invention is simply a new arrangement of things that already existed into something new and different. This will take one an extra mile in terms of investment in comparison from what others invests. Caution, do not look and compare yourself with others, be yourself and desire to set for others what to follow that not even one will ever come up and intend to have it changed but rather just appreciate and continue with it. You have to think big and be creative, doubling the amounts of chicken boosters and food sacks mixed up with several chicken boosters at every different stage they reach. Efficient and effective methods of chicken hygiene must be adopted by whoever is involved in such a project. Everybody who will use their imagination and creativity can invent many things. You do not need to be Einstein or Isaac Newton to invent anything but rather be YOURSELF. All you need to do is invent something and for that to happen, just imagine new arrangements of things that already exist which will change them into something new and different.
MODIFICATION: modify something which already exists. You need not to change it entirely into a different product, material, method or whatever-but into an improved one. This is something you and everybody around can and should do often. You always should have-alert in the “back of your mind”- the urge to modify, change and improve! Something…everything! Because everything can be improved and is just waiting for someone (you?) through sparking of an idea of modification and change which will improve it.
And finally, is the market for the product. After putting into place the above stated three, market for the finished product shall not miss you for sure and will be indispensable for there is nowhere in the world where they need not of the food and the chicken is part of the foods that are needed by individuals, big hotels within and outside the world. I believe by getting on ground to dig deep into the interest of customers would make my first customer contact a good experience as well as a proper networking with them.

Can you relate to the stories we told here? How is your experience different? We’d love to hear from you. Your questions and comments are what will help us make better lessons in the future.

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The Entrepreneur In The Family
#8

Thanks for sharing - I love this statement:

It’s great that you have experience with your chicken business. Could you tell me a bit more in a few short answers so we understand your experience and perspective? What’s it called? How long have you been doing it? How much do you sell?

#9

I love this post. It’s just a tip for me.

#10

Great to hear! What’s your big takeaway? I’d be keen to know

#11

Wao, this is wonderful, thank you all for this. I have been feeling stuck for a while about getting my first customer contact, but with this, I can’t wait to launch out. I have just finished my website for an ecommerce business. Will update as it goes

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#12

Can’t wait to hear how it goes. What’s the website? Can we take a look?

#13

I hear Eureka! That’s product-market fit. Overcoming this hurdle really sets the ball rolling in strategy creation and moving forward with confidence.

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