Non-Customer Discovery
Non-Customer Discovery helps the founder or programme team complete a focused intervention on customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals. Within Customer Discovery, Validation & Evidence, it turns a broad or uncertain area of the venture into a concrete Bertie work product that can be reviewed, improved and reused. The task is intentionally discrete: it should produce a specific artefact, decision, evidence item or risk signal rather than general learning notes.
Complete a focused intervention that advances Non-Customer Discovery. The objective is to remove ambiguity around customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals, give the founder a decision-ready output, and make it clear whether the venture should progress, repeat the task with stronger evidence, escalate to expert support, or move into a linked stage.
Bertie or a programme manager assigns Non-Customer Discovery when the venture needs a decision-ready output for this group. Typical triggers include group-gate reviews, evidence gaps identified by the co-pilot or founder request.
problem hypothesis; target customer assumptions; existing interviews or evidence; current alternatives; evidence log; specific context for customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals.
Establish why engaging non-customers—those who rejected, churned from, or actively avoid the product category—is essential for uncovering hidden market friction. Map out how investigating non-consumption will challenge prevailing assumptions and expose systemic barriers to adoption.
ObjectiveClarifying this action's purpose aligns the founder's focus on understanding non-consumption rather than seeking confirmation bias from current users. It ensures the parent task addresses critical blind spots in the value proposition, maximising the venture's ability to unlock latent demand.
What's expectedThe founder must deliver a clear problem statement detailing why target prospects currently choose alternative workarounds or non-participation. This must include explicit boundaries defining who constitutes a non-customer and what strategic questions this discovery cycle will answer.
Open action arrow_forwardConsultant stress-test · 5 questions- 1.What specific indicators distinguish a true non-customer from a prospect who is simply slow to adopt?
- 2.Why are you prioritising non-customers over existing, highly engaged users at this precise venture stage?
- 3.How will uncovering reasons for non-consumption fundamentally alter your current positioning strategy?
- 4.What assumptions are you making about why these individuals currently reject or ignore existing solutions in the market?
- 5.How do you intend to prevent team confirmation bias when interpreting negative or indifferent feedback from non-users?
- A data-room asset titled Non-Customer Discovery
- A clear task output, updated venture DNA and recommended next action
- It should update the venture DNA with specific evidence or decisions about customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals, create a visible milestone in the founder journey, and generate one or more recommended next tasks
Bertie co-pilot turns interview notes and customer signals into tagged evidence, detects confirmation bias, scores evidence quality, and recommends validation or MVP tasks. For this task, it should focus on customer discovery plan, assumptions, interview targets and learning goals, prompt the founder for missing inputs, draft or improve the output, flag weak assumptions, and record the result back into the relevant data-room section.
A mentor or evaluator can review the output at the group gate. Programme managers can require an advisor checkpoint before Bertie moves the venture forward.