[panorama]

"Working out of one of their offices side by side is a great way to hear how they talk, what they care about, etc."

I've heard this suggested occasionally, how does this ask usually work? Besides the fact that our clients aren't near where we're based, it feels socially strange asking to impose on someone's office for a day - I must be missing something.

[pstrazzulla]

Companies who are potential early customers are also usually growth stage startups themselves (100-500 people) and want to help out other entrepreneurs. Email the founders to tell them what you're up to, and tell them you won't be a drag on productivity. A company like this almost certainly also has extra office space as they rent for growth.

[JamesBarney]

Honestly I felt the same way, but the trick is to pick a start up where you know how and are able to do this. Or find a partner who can. The most likely way to do this is to go to conferences, happy hours, and introductions from friends.

If you are writing software for accountants and don't know how to spend time with accountants you're screwed, if you are writing software for in house counsel at utility companies and you don't know how to hang out with them you're screwed, and this goes for pretty much any B2B startup.

[t0mas88]

I did this with our early customer by offering to help in a few different ways. Especially if they are geographically a bit more distanced then you can tell them you would be happy to be there for 1 or 2 days to do multiple things, like run a few workshops, have a coffee with their manager and meet with IT (all three just examples). It isn't a very strange question to ask to use a spare desk in between those things.

[slim]

the obvious way is to adjust the product to their needs. like if you were consulting. so you go there, watch the user use your product, write code. rinse, repeat. of course you can do that only for the first ten customers