Find and test with your perfect customers in just one (1) day
The Bullseye Customer Sprint is a focused, high-efficiency approach that compresses weeks of market research, customer interviews, and user testing into a single day. Adapted from Google Ventures' "Learn More Faster" methodology, this format helps teams validate their hypotheses about who their initial adopters will be and what features those customers will find most useful. This accelerated approach allows teams to define their Bullseye Customer, recruit five (5), test three (3) prototypes, and gather actionable insights — all during one (1) day. Perfect for teams needing decisive direction before investing deeply in product, this framework turns theories into validated customer understanding, empowering confident, data-driven decisions.
Primary gains:
- Targeted development
Align product features with validated customer needs, desires, and painpoints rather than assumptions - Team alignment
Create shared understanding of your ideal customers through direct observation - Reducing risk
Validates hypotheses before significant investment, preventing costly misdirection
General overview: what to expect
The Bullseye Customer framework condenses what traditionally takes weeks into a single day of high-impact, high-value work. Your team will start by defining the hypothesis around your bullseye customer and creating three (3) prototype value propositions. You'll then observe five (5) carefully selected customers in an interview format, each followed by team debriefs to capture insights. Each session is fast followed with synthesis, turning raw, group observations into actionable next steps.
Though the framework follows a structured approach, it can be adapted to your specific needs — from virtual to in-person sessions, and can incorporate existing research or be paired with additional discovery methods.
While the Bullseye Customer Sprint draws from Google Ventures' methodology, the concept of targeted customer discovery has been explored by many, including "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick, "Testing Business Ideas" by David J. Bland and Alexander Osterwalder, "Interviewing Users" by Steve Portigal, and Teresa Torres.
- Download Bullseye Customer Sprint PDF
Detailed benefits
How it might work for your team
Define your Bullseye Customer
Move beyond generic personas to identify the specific subset of customers most likely to adopt your product first, creating focus for product, design, development, and marketing efforts.
Test competing value propositions
Rather than committing to a single approach, compare three (3) different value propositions in the form of prototypes to uncover what truly resonates with your Bullseye Customers.
Witness customer reactions firsthand
The team watch party format ensures everyone hears directly from customers, eliminating the distortion that happens when insights are filtered through reports.
Compress learning cycles dramatically
What traditionally takes weeks or months of research gets compressed into a single day of high-impact learning, accelerating your path to product-market fit.
Case study
A B2B manufacturing components supplier was planning to launch a new inventory management system but was unsure which features to prioritize for their initial release. The product team had competing theories about customer needs, creating gridlock.
Unbeknownst to us, we facilitated a version of the Bullseye Customer Sprint in 2021 to resolve these debates by reaching out to core customers directly. We hypothesized that the ideal customer (how we phrased it then) would be mid-sized manufacturers struggling with supply chain disruptions and other issues of uncertainty.
Five (5) carefully selected procurement managers participated in interviews, reviewing three (3) different demos of inventory management: one focused on key analytics, another on supplier integration, and a third on simplified reordering.
Key takeaways:
- Hidden decision-makers
While procurement managers were the surface-level buyers, floor supervisors had significant influence over adoption decisions, requiring features valuable to both roles - Integration beats features
Customers consistently favored the simplest solution that integrated well with existing systems over feature-rich options that would require workflow changes - Value of social proof
Industry-specific references dramatically increased confidence in new solutions, with customers hesitant to be "first adopters" in their sector
The team revised their release strategy to focus on seamless integration with popular Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, added features specific to inventory visibility, and developed a reference program for early customers. The resulting product launched with strong adoption and our understanding is that it became profitable ahead of projections.
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Interested in learning how a Bullseye Customer Sprint could benefit your organization? Let's schedule a convo to discuss your unique challenges.
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