The Dirty Dozen Framework: How Strata Identity Validates New Categories Through Early Adopters
Before writing a single line of code for Strata Identity, Eric Olden spent nearly a year interviewing potential customers. This wasn’t just standard market research – it was a deliberate methodology he had developed across three successful category creations in the identity management space.
Why Twelve Customers?
In a recent Category Visionaries episode, Eric introduced his “dirty dozen” framework for early customer validation: “Really make sure that you get the first twelve customers right.” The number isn’t arbitrary – it’s large enough to identify patterns but small enough to manage deeply meaningful relationships with each customer.
“The reason it’s dirty is that you’re dealing with customers that are really unclear about what they want because they’ve never seen this before,” Eric explains. This inherent messiness is actually a feature, not a bug – it forces founders to engage deeply with early adopters to understand their real needs.
The Customer Development Process
The framework begins with open-ended problem exploration. “When you’re talking to people who are in the business, you’re not trying to get them to buy something because you don’t have anything at this point,” Eric notes. “It’s more of a conceptual conversation.”
He recommends a specific sequence of questions:
- “Of all the things that you’re doing without me telling you what I want you to say, what are the top three things that you’re concerned with right now?”
- “Would you give me more time and pilot this?”
- “If you were able to be successful on a pilot, would you purchase that?”
- “Is this a $1000 problem or a million dollar problem?”
Finding the Core Six to Eight
A key insight from the framework is that you won’t build for all twelve customers. “It’s usually probably somewhere between six and eight of those twelve that you say, look, they have the same problem and they’re all happy with the same solution,” Eric explains.
This selective focus is crucial. Rather than trying to please everyone, successful category creators must “be able to walk away from customers who want you to do something that will spread your resources too thin.”
The Founder’s Role
This isn’t work that can be delegated. “This is the Founder’s full time job,” Eric emphasizes. “This isn’t something you hire somebody in to come and do this. This is where CEO, the CTO, the founders, were the ones who did all of those early conversations.”
For Strata, this hands-on approach ensured that “we have that common grounding in those early days to define what the problem we’re going to solve was, and that’s brought us to where we are today.”
Keeping Burn Rate Low
During this extended customer development phase, Eric stresses the importance of maintaining a minimal burn rate: “It’s important to keep the company in the burn rate really small because you don’t want to short circuit anything there because it’s usually after a lot of discussion and analysis and conversations that you land on the thing that your first generation is going to be.”
From Conversations to Code
Only after thoroughly validating the problem and solution with the dirty dozen should founders begin building. “It’s easier to work in pixels instead of code,” Eric advises. “And even before pixels with a visual design have a conversation and write things in pencil and just start to really build a breadth of knowledge.”
2024 Evolution
The framework continues to evolve. For 2024, Strata has refined its approach: “The product expands, but our message contracts. And so I like to think about it as market the vision and sell the product.”
For B2B tech founders looking to create new categories, the dirty dozen framework offers a structured approach to customer development that balances depth with practicality. It’s not just about collecting feedback – it’s about finding the core group of customers who share a common problem and are willing to invest in a new solution.
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