Field Notes on First Customer Fiction
The first customer has been imagined in great detail. The first customer has not been located.
I.
The first customer is a 34-year-old professional. The first customer has a specific problem. The problem is the problem the product solves. The first customer found the product through a channel that has not yet been built and signed up through a flow that has not yet been designed and paid a price that has not yet been set.
The first customer is happy with the product. The first customer left a review.
II.
The imagined first customer uses the product in the way the product was designed to be used. They do not use it for a different purpose. They do not request a feature that changes the architecture. They do not complain about the onboarding. The onboarding is excellent in the imagined version.
The first customer tells two friends. The two friends are also 34 years old.
III.
The founder has explained the first customer to four people. The four people nodded. Nodding meant they could see the customer as described. It did not mean they had encountered the customer in the world, because the customer does not yet exist in the world.
Existing in the world is the first customer's next scheduled step.
IV.
The first customer is always a version of the founder who has solved the problem the founder is solving. This is observed without judgment. The observed fact creates a mild complication: the founder has already solved the problem, which means the first real customer will be someone else, someone who approaches the problem differently, notices different friction points, and uses different words for the same thing.
This person has not been imagined yet.
V.
At a dinner party last week, the founder met someone who had the problem. Not the imagined version of the problem. A real version, with specifics and workarounds and a budget constraint that the product's pricing does not currently accommodate.
The conversation was seventeen minutes long. The founder took notes afterward. The notes are in a document next to the document containing the imagined first customer.
The two documents have not yet been reconciled.
VI.
Progress continues.