Jul 26, 2008 12
Defining the Customer
This is from a conversation I had at Inman SF ’2008. Perhaps conversation is too dignified a term for what was actually going on at the time, since all of the participants were three sheets into the wind by that point in the night. Let’s call it more like… inspired spouting of words between people who were far too happy for that time of night. I believe the participants were Jeff Corbett, Daniel Martin, Joseph Ferrara, Dr. Salvatore Giammarresi (who just might be the smartest guy in real estate), and Jessie Beaudoin from Retrove. I say “I believe” because well, see aforementioned number of sails and the wind and the effects thereunto. For all I know, Santa Claus was at the discussion and I may not remember.
Nevertheless… we somehow got onto the topic of business models because I had recently written a post criticizing Zipvo’s business model. Let’s just say that some of the folks agreed with me, while others thought I was hitting the ye olde pipe pretty hard. When you’re in San Francisco, with a bunch of young real estate tech people, discussing startup concepts, business models, and such is inevitable. I just couldn’t help but think that many of the ideas I was hearing were weak, and fundamentally weak, because of a simple definition problem: Who is the customer? Read the rest of this entry »
