Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup

Chapter 49. Know Your Customer

Bill Flagg

Bill is the former co-owner and president of RegOnline, a company that provides online registration software, and is currently an investor through his fund, The Felix Fund. He has been a TechStars mentor since 2007.

A real business boils down to one thing—serving peoples' needs and getting paid for it in a way that you can operate profitably. The best way to do that is to know your customers.

At RegOnline we constantly listened to what our customers needed and wanted. This process started with my business partner Attila who built the first version of our software on the basis of what one of our early customers requested. Attila then turned to the next customer, and the next customer, and the next customer until we had 5,000 happy ones.

Over time we began to expand our sales and marketing activities to be self-serve, through which our customer didn't have to talk to a salesperson to sign up for our service. We constantly looked for how we could make it easier for prospects to find what they wanted in our product by listening to what they asked the salespeople on the phones and then repeating that information in a simple way online.

Getting inside my prospects' and customers' minds was one of the most valuable activities I did at RegOnline. Getting face to face at trade shows helped me learn and play back what customers wanted. Sitting in on our ...