Back in 2013, I started praying and thinking through whether I should work on launching another start-up. I had a list of reasonably good ideas I had cultivated, solutions to problems I thought would be valued by customers, but I had to decide which, if any, were really worth pursuing. As I prayed through the list, I felt challenged to use filtering criteria I had never genuinely considered before:
Who are the customers you would enjoy being with even if you had nothing to sell them?
I enjoy interacting with a wide variety of people and have had the privilege of getting to know a lot of incredible people in various industries and professions through my business endeavors including ranching, law, non-profits, healthcare, government, start-ups and technology. As I reflected on the question above though, I found myself increasingly drawn to the type of people I grew up around. People who may be referred to a “salt of the earth”, individuals who work with their hands, produce tangible things and love being outside. I find it easy and satisfying to spend time with such people. There’s something about how they work and go about life that feels comfortable and resonates with me.
Using this new insight as my filtering criteria, I reviewed my start-up ideas list with a refocused lens. What jumped off the page for me was Billy Boxes, the idea to bring a completely reimagined truck bed toolbox to the market, one made uniquely for each individual, their gear and their activities. The customers I would pursue would be the type of people I really enjoy being around. To be sure, before I decided to launch Billy Boxes I also performed a lot of additional due diligence and customer research, but I did not start there. I started with the customer. A customer I respect, admire and enjoy.
How would things be different for you or your organization if you focused on the customers you really enjoy? Would it bring new energy and passion? At a deeper level would you care more about the customer experience or be more likely to convert the typical customer into a brand evangelist? I think it’s worth considering, not to the exclusion of other perfectly valid reasons for pursuing certain customers, but I was missing something by not fully understanding the type of customer who I am most fascinated by and really enjoy being around.
