Comments on: Users vs Customers

By: Steve Blank: Stanford’s Hottest Startups Hunt For Customers | Equity News

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:28:56 +0000

[...] testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model, one with both buyers and sellers). Many of them had heard the phrase “product/market [...]

By: The LeanLaunch Pad at Stanford – Class 4: Customer Hypotheses « Steve Blank

The LeanLaunch Pad at Stanford – Class 4: Customer Hypotheses « Steve Blank — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:02:09 +0000

[...] were testing who the customer, user, payer for the product will be (and discovering if they have a multi-sided business model, one with both buyers and sellers.) Many of them had heard the phrase “product/market fit” [...]

By: Rosien

Rosien — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 17:45:39 +0000

Nice post. As happens often the tech-examples show models that apply – or can serve as inspiration – in other sectors to. I find in my not-for-profit we systematically distinguish between users and those who (also) pay and I always work them on one-and-the-same canvas, because it helps you keep track of the consistency of what you do: you usually do not offer both groups the same but your operation needs to be consistent in terms of benefits and revenues, characteristics of partners, your customer values, communication channels etc.

By: Andrew Harnden

Andrew Harnden — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:55:54 +0000

There’s a broader dimension to Users versus Customers that comes out in some of the comments above. Take WebEx (part of Cisco) for example. WebEx has historically sold to a B2B Customer who sets up a contract for corporate Users (the product is called Meeting Centre). They now have a B2C product, called WebEx Meet (in Beta) which (for now) is free. As Cisco learns to monetize their B2C product (the free version of Meet is limited to one host and 4 participants, you’ll pay for more), they now have Users (registered with free version), User/Customers (holding an account with paid version) and Customers (administering an account on behalf of other users). Now there is a distinct split in the brand experience between B2B Customers and B2C User/Customers. It becomes signficant in modelling the business because, while the PROFIT is in hard cash ($R-$C), the EQUITY is in the community of users and the meetings they schedule, host, and record.

By: Users and Customers (those who actually pay!) | SGEye Eyes the World

Users and Customers (those who actually pay!) | SGEye Eyes the World — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 22:42:51 +0000

[...] Users and Customers (those who actually pay!) Posted on September 18, 2010 by sgeye http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com/2010/07/users-vs-customers.html [...]

By: Users and Customers (those who actually pay!) | Delightfully Distinctive COLRS

Sat, 18 Sep 2010 02:24:44 +0000

[...] Users and Customers (those who actually pay!) Posted on September 18, 2010 by ddcolrs http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com/2010/07/users-vs-customers.html [...]

By: Erwin Fielt

Erwin Fielt — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:49:27 +0000

Note that the way of looking at this, and changing this (who is targeted) can be a source of business model innovation.

In Blue Ocean Strategy, Kim & Mauborgne (2005) refer to the the chain of buyers. They state that “In most industries, competitors converge around a common definition of who the target buyer is. [...] In reality, though, there is a chain of “buyers” who are directly or indirectly involved in the buying decision, e.g. purchasers, users, or influencers. [...] Although these groups may overlap, they often differ. When they do, they frequently hold different definitions of value.” Examples of traditional target buyers are in pharmaceutical the doctors and in office equipment the corporate purchasers.

By: Paul Westeneng

Paul Westeneng — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:09:28 +0000

I’m very intereseted in the diggerentiation between users and customers. At Andriessen, we provide Online Examination facilities including Exam Locations as an Online service to Educational Institutions, both profit and non profit.
We communicate and interact quite a lot with our clients customers: the exam candidates. One of our VP is to offer the the optimal exam experience.
How do we fit in the differences between our customer and our customer’s customer in the Business Model Canvas?

By: Erwin Fielt

Erwin Fielt — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 05:40:31 +0000

This shows one of the strengths of the Canvas, but also its weakness (and therefore also a potential pitfall when designing new models), it is relatively straight forward and most easily fits a (business model) model where the main interactions take place between two actors (provider and customer/user) and there is a separation between front-end (customers) and back-end (partners), but which to a certain extent can be stretched as Alex’s examples show.

In the end we may in some situations need to sketch more complex business networks with different actors and roles and different propositions and flows between them, as an add-on (or replacement) of the canvas. This is nothing new as we have seen many of these kind of models to describe business models, for example in the work of Well & Vitale (business model schematics) or Gordijn (e3 value).

By: Susan Kearney

Susan Kearney — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:29:32 +0000

In many cases in CPG the only way to the consumer is through a customer. They act as a gateway or gatekeeper in some cases. Your relationship with them is just as critical as it is with the consumer and is potentially different.