Embed yourself with your first customer by living and working with them
To truly understand what your customer does and build the right product, you need extreme immersion—not just interviews or site visits, but actually living with them, working from their office, and being 'so in it' that you experience their workflow firsthand. This level of embedding reveals problems and nuances that no amount of user research can uncover. The investment in deep customer understanding early pays off in building exactly what they need.
When to use
When building vertical SaaS or complex B2B products where understanding domain expertise and daily workflows is critical. Best for first customer who believes in your vision enough to accommodate this level of immersion.
Don't do this
Staying in your office and doing occasional customer interviews or demos. Building based on what customers SAY they need rather than what you observe they actually do. Trying to understand a complex industry through research alone.
1 Founder Who Did This
Literally set up desks at Segment's office for weeks to embed with her first customer, manually reading SOC 2 reports and building compliance spreadsheets on-site