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What is the best way to do customer discovery when all I have is an idea? I don't want to build a prototype until I know the idea is valid and that it's worth doing.

Read up on Lean Startup from CustDev.com and AshMaurya.com.

write down your hypotheses and assumptions around the idea you have

owing that non-profit supporters around the world have been adopting the use of social networking in their daily lives we set out to figure out if the use of social networks had any impact on personal or peer-to-peer fundraising. The results we’re pretty amazing

e found that participants who use social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube communicate with their networks more regularly and send more messages. This resulted in increased fundraising results by up to 40%.

Twitter as a Multiplier Twitter users set higher fundraising goals and raised more money. In fact, Twitter users increased their personal fundraising goals by at least three times more and raised nearly 10 times more online than their peers who did not use Twitter.

trategy #1: Try to Get Permission

Strategy #2: Use Advertising to Test

Use advertising as a testing tool rather than a long-term stream of customers.

Bell Canada, for example, receives 9,200 requests for either philanthropic or sponsorship support each year

ell faces a major challenge in dealing with these applications, and making the difficult decisions concerning which to support and which to turn down, while striving to get good value for its sponsorship investments. Overall, she points out, the objective is "to connect to the things that matter"

Bell does not sponsor individual athletes, individuals who simply have an idea or cause they wish to promote, or business launches. If applicable, Foster points out,

An overwhelming number of marketers consider social media to be integral to their strategies this year, and 70% plan to increase their social media budget by more than 10% this year

found that the primary social media goal is to increase Facebook “Likes.”

social networking would take 11.9% of their overall budget this year compared with 13% for TV

s transitioning from living primarily as a Facebook canvas application to running off of its standalone website Causes.com

led to a two-fold increase in the amount of money the site raises in donations from its ‘Birthday Wish’ feature on a daily basis — $20,000 a day, up from $10,000 two months ago.

Causes gift cards in every Safeway and Vons location in California.

Corporations have, not surprisingly, turned their marketing lens to the social networks, and they're running their corporate giving programs like a race for prom king.

Too often, it's the popular kid, and not the most deserving one, who wins. This type of giving poses definite ethical questions. That corporate marketing divisions are using social responsibility as a way to boost the bottom line is the least of these. The aforementioned $200,000 is actually but a part of the $5 million Chase claims to have donated

There's another advantage for Chase to hand out money this way: they're splashed all over your Facebook news feed as good-hearted bankers with whom you might just want to do business. But are these dollars solely devoted to helping charitable organizations, or are they just another way of advertising? A multi-billion dollar corporation shouldn't be allowed to write-off advertising as a charitable contribution.

how many different variations of the “product feedback cycle” there are.

What he means by this is simply, how long does it take and how many layers does feedback on the product go through before it gets to engineering.

There are a few options.  First, you could have clients talk directly to engineers.  While that in theory is the shortest path the feedback cycle could take, that’s typically not the best solution.  Most engineering teams prefer to stay “heads down” and not be interrupted, and are also rarely involved in the client day-to-day, so context switching is hard for them.  You should definitely have interaction there, but probably not all the time.