Try this:

https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-Step/dp/09...

and/or

https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries...

and/or

https://www.amazon.com/You-Build-Will-They-Come/dp/047056363...

and this:

https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/...

My favorite book on customer development is "The Mom Test"[0], by a YCombinator alum. The name is terrible, but the content of that book is golden. He tells the terrifying story of talking to customers constantly as they wasted a million dollars building something the customers were not going to buy. There are various ways the customer pays you before the product is ready, and if they aren't paying you, they aren't really interested. Payment can be in the form of time (they meet with you), personal reputation (they recommend you to friends), company reputation (they arrange a meeting with their boss, or coworkers), etc.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone-...

Highly recommend the Mom Test which is exactly about this.

https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/...

I read an amazing book on customer development: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick - https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/...

The first few pages blew my mind. It was a great read all the way through.

Hey mate, are you based in London?

Damn, and here I thought being based in SEA provides for a veil of secrecy. Never thought we'd be out in the woodworks so early.

That's a good idea to reach out to others, I use 'The Mom Test' when validating customer problems - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mom-Test-customers-business/dp/1...

The Mom Test book (how to talk to customers when everyone is lying to you)[1] sold roughly $5k in preorders and another $10k since launch ~4 months ago. Probably 50% of that has come from speaking gigs where the event bought a bunch of books instead of paying a speaking fee.

It's on Amazon[2] as a paperback via createspace[3] print-on-demand and as an ebook via gumroad[4]. Both platforms have been great.

It took 10 months part-time from first words on paper until the finished book was in people's hands. Editing was the most painful part and took 3 months. I did the first draft on paper, and the revising in scrivener[5], which also handles exporting to all the ebook formats.

I made illustrations for it, but left them out since the layout was taking more time than it was worth and I wanted to ship it.

Incidentally, I'm also working on a book landing page generator called heylookabook[6] . I'm building in some of the marketing best-practices that I learned from working on my own, so it's there if it's helpful!

[1] http://momtestbook.com [2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Mom-Test-customers-business/dp/149... [3] http://createspace.com [4] http://gum.co/momtest [5] http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php [6] http://heylookabook.com