Top ten bullshit reasons you can't do problem interviews...

I hear these every day - thanks to +LeCamping SiliconSentier +NUMA Paris I'm finally starting to post them... Real excuses from real entrepreneurs in real time. There is a difference between being a dick and trying to push people to do what I know they can. The objective of this post of course is the latter...
  1. "All of our customers are at lunch, this is Paris"
  2. "But our company is B2B"
  3. "They are asleep."
  4. "It's not the right time" ( accelerator team looking for restaurant owners just as I finished writing #3)
  5. "It will ruin our reputation"  via +Franck Debane  + 
  6. "I can't talk to 5 retail clients who need a media plan ASAP in Chile because.... it's Saturday - and on Saturday in Chile problems go away and no one wants them solved anymore."

  1. Bullshit - this exercise started at 10am. Bullshit - this will still be Paris when you try and sell your solution blind to the same customers. 
  2. Bullshit - maybe the biggest bullshit excuse in all of #leanstartup - I am not even sure entrepreneurs even mean this I think someone is secretly giving them 50 dollars, euro, pesos to say so... What does that even mean? Your company solves a problem for a business? Who is going to have to buy it? Who is going to have to use it? Go talk to ten of those people. They are people just like b2c. Maybe a b2b contract is worth more and takes more time and is more sensitive to certain experiments, but not to talking. Maybe you can talk to fewer people but "B2B" is the not an excuse!
  3. BULLSHIT. Are you in the USA? Call someone in Australia. They are up. 
  4. BULLSHIT. When is the right time, during their main rush at dinner (to which they answered 3:30 - which seems like BULLSHIT but let's see in 2 hours) 
  5. --BULLSHIT (it won't - but this is a genuine concern and I will address it here - short answer is that it is worth the risk and do it in small batches under a different name. 
  6. BULLSHIT - if this is really a startup that you want to do - you can find 5 people who want this problem solved, EVEN ON SATURDAY, EVEN IN CHILE:) GO NOW:) @ravalez

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