The Four Steps to the Epiphany

Who Is This Book Not For? 

There are cases where using the Customer Development methodology is inappropriate.  There 

are businesses where the aphorism “build and they will come” is actually true. For example, in 

biotechnology startups, if you could can find a drug which cures a specific cancer, a Customer 

Development strategy is simply a waste of time; it doesn’t take a formal process to figure out that 

there will be huge end user demand for the drug.   

The risk in biotechnology companies is in the front-end of product development; taking a 

research hypothesis and developing into a successful and effective drug, not in the back-end  of 

customer acceptance and adoption.  In a biotechnology startup success and failure are not about 

understanding customer needs or adoption.  If the company can develop a product that works and 

get it through the FDA approval process, customers would literally be dying to get it.   

In these companies to get to a Phase III trial (for Controlled Safety and Efficacy, the last step 

before submitting a New Drug Application to the FDA), a company has typically spent four and a 

half years in clinical trials and nearly $50 million.  For these ventures, the issue isn’t Customer 

Development to understand end user needs, but rather finding the right Partner, Licensing and 

Distribution Channel strategies.   

Similar issues can be found in some health care and energy products.  The users and markets are 

known and if a product can development business is assured.  However, our contention is that in the 

past, most entrepreneurs in every early stage venture believed that “build it and they will come” 

described their company.  Our contention is that it only covers the few, not the many. 

For the rest of us, where the issues are customer acceptance and market adoption, this book 

shows the path. 

 

 

 

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Chapter 1: The Path to Disaster   

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