# Commitment currencies and early adopters

> Why a compliment proves nothing once you show your idea, what counts as a real commitment, how to read the three currencies customers pay with (time, reputation and money) and how they reveal your early adopters.

- Course: [Customer Development: Talking to Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews.md)
- Module: Commitment and advancement
- Lesson 10/15, ~40 min
- Source: https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/commitment-currencies

## Twelve yeses and nothing else

**Alex Tutor:** New module, same job on CatChow's product team: finding out if the food subscription is wanted.

**Sofia:** Good news! Now that I understand how people buy food, I finally showed the subscription to twelve cat owners. Everyone loved it.

**Alex Tutor:** Showing it was the right move at this stage. So what happens next with those twelve people?

**Sofia:** Next? Well… most of them said to let them know when it launches.

**Megan:** Same story in sales. I pitched the corporate version to eight offices and two pet shops. My pipeline is full of “sounds great, keep me posted”. Nobody has signed a thing.

**Alex Tutor:** Once you reveal the idea, compliments come back. That's expected. The good news is that now you have a filter for them: ask for a **commitment**.

> **Exercise:** Sofia showed the subscription to twelve people. All of them liked it; most asked to be told when it launches. What does the team know for sure?

## What counts as a customer commitment

**Sofia:** So what exactly counts as a commitment?

**Alex Tutor:** Someone gives up something they value to move forward with you. Not words: their time, their reputation or their money.

**Alex Tutor:** Think of it as a currency. A compliment costs nothing, so as evidence it's worth nothing. An evening spent testing your prototype costs a lot, so it tells you a lot.

**Sofia:** So “I love it” is free, and “here's 1,250 UAH for the first box” isn't.

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. There are three main **commitment currencies**: time, reputation risk and money. Words like “I'll definitely buy it” aren't on the list, however sincere they sound.

![Three coins of rising size on a shop counter next to a cat-food bag, stamped with a clock, a handshake and a banknote.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/commitment-currencies-illustration-2.webp)

*Time, reputation and money: what people give up is the evidence.*

> **Exercise:** A customer who says “I'll definitely subscribe the day you launch” has made a commitment.

## Time and reputation

**Alex Tutor:** Start with a **time commitment**: a follow-up call with a clear agenda, feedback on packaging sketches, two weeks of using a trial box and reporting what went wrong.

**Olivia:** Honestly, send me a trial box. I'll keep a little diary for two weeks: what Whiskers ate, what he ignored, when the delivery came.

**Alex Tutor:** That's a real offer of effort, much more than a compliment. It becomes evidence when the diary actually arrives.

**Alex Tutor:** The second currency is **reputation risk**. People put their name on the line: an intro to a colleague or a boss, a public review, agreeing to be a case study.

**Sofia:** Why is an intro expensive? It's one email.

**Alex Tutor:** If you waste the boss's time, the boss is annoyed with her, not with you. Nobody takes that risk for an idea they don't believe in.

![An office worker holds open the door to her boss's office for a visitor, raising her own blank name badge.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/commitment-currencies-illustration-3.webp)

**Megan:** An office manager at an IT company offered to introduce me to their HR director, who owns the benefits budget. I told her “maybe later”.

**Alex Tutor:** Say yes today. An intro to the **decision maker** is one of the most valuable things a B2B contact can give you, and a sign she takes you seriously.

> **Exercise:** Match what each person did with the currency they paid in.

## Money: pre-orders, deposits and letters of intent

**Alex Tutor:** The third currency is money, and it's the most convincing. A **cash commitment** doesn't have to be big: a pre-order, a deposit or a signed letter of intent.

**Sofia:** What's the difference between them?

**Alex Tutor:** A **pre-order**: paying today for the first box that ships later. A deposit: say, 200 UAH to reserve one of the first hundred places, refundable if you change your mind.

**Alex Tutor:** A **letter of intent**, or LOI, is for companies: a signed letter saying they plan to buy on certain terms. It isn't legally binding, but a director has put a signature on it.

**Alex Tutor:** Let's tell the three apart before we go on.

> **Exercise:** Match each situation with the kind of cash commitment it is.

**Sofia:** A pre-order for a subscription that doesn't exist yet? Who would do that?

**Alex Tutor:** Someone who really has the problem. And if nobody does, you've learned it before signing a warehouse lease, not after.

**Sofia:** So even a small deposit tells me more than a dozen yeses.

**Alex Tutor:** Much more. But commitments aren't all equal, so let's rank a few.

> **Exercise:** Put these endings of a conversation in order, from the weakest signal to the strongest.

## The more they give, the more you can trust them

**Sofia:** So any commitment means they'll become a customer?

**Alex Tutor:** No, commitments differ in size. A 15-minute look at mockups is a weak signal; a paid pilot is a strong one. The more someone gives up, the more seriously you can take their kind words.

**Alex Tutor:** The strongest commitments combine currencies. Megan, imagine that IT company pays for a three-month pilot for the cats of 20 employees.

**Megan:** Time: they'd organise it. Reputation: HR puts their name on a new perk. Money: 20 × 1,250 × 3 = 75,000 UAH. That would be a real deal.

![Commitment signals from weakest to strongest: kind words, time, reputation, money, and a paid pilot that combines all three for 75,000 UAH.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/diagrams/m4-l1-commitment-ladder.png)

**Alex Tutor:** And a real signal. Compare it with “sounds great, keep me posted”: the same friendly smile, a completely different price.

> **Exercise:** How five conversations ended. Which endings include a real commitment? Select all that apply.

## Early adopters and early evangelists

**Sofia:** Who tends to make those strong commitments, then?

**Alex Tutor:** Now the people behind the strongest commitments. **Early adopters** are the first customers to buy a new product, before it's polished or proven, because their problem hurts enough to accept rough edges. You don't spot them by enthusiasm, but by who pays first in time, reputation or money.

**Sofia:** So not necessarily the loudest fans?

**Alex Tutor:** Not necessarily. Check that idea before we meet one of them.

> **Exercise:** The surest way to spot early adopters is to notice who sounds most excited when they first hear the idea.

**Sofia:** One of the twelve was different. Before I finished explaining, she asked how she could pay.

**Alex Tutor:** Tell me about her.

**Sofia:** Two cats, one on a prescription diet. She buys from three online shops and tracks every bag in a spreadsheet so she never runs out.

**Alex Tutor:** That's an **early evangelist**, the most committed kind of early adopter. She has the problem, knows it, has searched for a fix, has built her own workaround and can pay. The spreadsheet is the giveaway.

![A woman with two cats, bags from three shops beside her and a laptop with a grid of coloured cells, holds out her bank card mid-pitch.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/commitment-currencies-illustration-4.webp)

*She has the problem, knows it, and has already built a workaround.*

**Alex Tutor:** People like her are rare (one of your twelve, about 8%), and they commit before it looks rational: they'll pay for a half-finished product because the pain is real. Find them first and keep them close.

**Sofia:** And the ones who just smiled?

**Alex Tutor:** Be nice to them, but don't count on them for your first sales.

> **Exercise:** Which of these customers looks most like an early evangelist for CatChow's subscription?

## What to ask Olivia for

**Sofia:** I'm calling Olivia again on Friday. What should I ask her for?

**Alex Tutor:** Decide before the call, not during it. Think of one thing in each currency that fits where she is now. Keep them concrete: what, when, how much.

**Sofia:** And if she says no to all three?

**Alex Tutor:** Then you've learned something true about her interest. A clear no is useful; a vague yes isn't.

**Alex Tutor:** Here are two ways to end Friday's call. Which one would actually tell you something?

> **Exercise:** Two ways Sofia could end Friday's call with Olivia. Which one gives her a real **signal** about Olivia's interest?

> **Exercise:** Name one concrete commitment in **each** currency (time, reputation, money) that Sofia could ask Olivia for at the end of Friday's call. Be specific: what, when, how much.

## An honest weekly report

**Sofia:** My weekly report says: “12 conversations, 12 positive.” I'm guessing that has to change.

**Alex Tutor:** Count commitments, not smiles: that's demand validation. What actually happened after the twelve?

**Sofia:** Nine said “let me know when it launches”. Two agreed to look at our app mockups; one of them sent feedback. And Nora asked to pre-pay, but I had no way to take her money.

**Alex Tutor:** That last one hurts. An early evangelist ready to pay, and nothing to pay with. Next time, have a payment link ready. Now rewrite the report.

> **Exercise:** Rewrite Sofia's report line “12 conversations, 12 positive” in one to three sentences, based on commitments. Nine said “let me know when it launches”; two agreed to review mockups and one of them sent feedback; one person (Nora) asked to pre-pay but couldn't.

## A small B2B lead

**Megan:** Here's one from my list. The owner of Murchalnia, a cat café with nine resident cats, said “Love it, keep me posted.” How would you handle her?

**Alex Tutor:** What do we know about her as a fact?

**Megan:** She spends about 7,000 UAH a month on food and orders from two shops, because one of them keeps running out of the brand her cats eat.

**Alex Tutor:** A real problem and a real budget. Then “keep me posted” is a missed chance, not a verdict. Plan what you'll ask her for, step by step.

> **Exercise:** Plan the commitments Megan should ask the cat café owner for.

## What to remember

**Sofia:** So “everyone loved it” was never the result. The result is what people were willing to give up.

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Compliments are free. Time, reputation and money aren't, and that's why you can trust them.

> **Key ideas**
>
> - A **commitment** means giving up something valuable now: time, reputation or money.
> - Compliments and future promises cost nothing, so they prove nothing.
> - The bigger the commitment, the stronger the signal; the best ones combine currencies.
> - Look for **early adopters**, and the **early evangelists** among them: they have the problem, have tried to fix it and are ready to pay first.
> - Decide what you'll ask for before the conversation.

**Alex Tutor:** Next lesson: how to end every conversation with a concrete next step, and how to rescue one that's drifting into compliments.

- Previous lesson: [Keeping it casual: conversations, not meetings](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/keeping-it-casual.md)
- Next lesson: [Next steps after a discovery call](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/next-steps.md)

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