The steps in the customer factory are like links in a chain.
At any given point in time, there is always a single weakest link or constraint. Growth comes from correctly identifying, prioritizing, and breaking this constraint.
80% of your entire team’s effort should be focused on your weakest link and nothing else.
Once a constraint is broken, search for the next constraint, and repeat the process.
How do you know when a constraint is broken? When your customer factory throughput goes up as a result of something you just did.
This is the Theory of Constraints applied to the Customer Factory. [see principle #10 of the Customer Factory Manifesto]
The answer depends on the numbers of the customer factory.
If you’re not yet measuring at least the 5 customer factory metrics in your business on a regular basis, you won’t be able to systematically identify your constraint. Start immediately. It only takes a week of metrics to create an actionable baseline.
Once you have weekly baseline metrics, work backwards from happy paying customers to look for the slowest step (or the step with the biggest drop-off) in the customer factory to find your constraints.
If the numbers in your customer factory are zero because you don’t yet have any customers, users, or leads in the pipeline, your next objective should be getting your customer factory up and running.
In other words, your constraint is acquisition.
Most teams don’t start with acquisition and defer building a customer pipeline until they have a product ready to use/sell. This is backward. More importantly, you risk wasting needless time, money, and effort building something nobody wants i.e. you focus on the wrong constraint.
Examples: