
I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks - westonh
http://joshledgard.com/i-wish-id-thought-of-that-operation-starbucks/
======
MCompeau
We tried this just yesterday at a couple Starbucks locations in Toronto for
our new lines of 3D printed jewelry (<http://www.hotpopfactory.com/>). It was
great, because we could hone in on specific demographics that interested us
based on the location and time of day.

For the most part we found people weren't actually interested in taking any
money for coffee (we didn't go the gift card route, we just approached people
in line directly). When we offered to pay some people actually found it a bit
off-putting. That said though, when you approach people candidly looking for
feedback on a project you're personally invested in, people seemed pretty
generous with their time.

We ended up getting great feedback on everything from the usability of our
website, to the desirability of our product and pricing. We even ended up
finding a couple new customers along the way. I'd highly recommend this
experiment for any consumer facing product, it can be a bit daunting at first,
but when used strategically it can be far more productive then having your
head down coding in isolation all day.

~~~
randlet
I can't say exactly why it is, but I bet no one would have felt off-put if you
had offered gift cards instead of cash. People in general will be much more
comfortable taking a gift card than cash.

~~~
khet
The person probably thinks "I can afford a cup of coffee so I don't need your
money". A gift on the other hand is meant to be given away so seems alright.

~~~
JoshLedgard
Agreed.

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nostromo
If possible, say that you're doing it as research for an agency.

People are nice and don't want to hurt your feelings. ("Yeah, I'd totally buy
that! Oh, I didn't bring my credit card, sorry...")

Also, if you have competitors, try getting feedback on their apps as well. It
can give you hints about what they are doing right and wrong, and how you can
differentiate.

~~~
Felix21
Woow Feedback on competitors apps. What a great idea!

~~~
micheljansen
I've done this a few times. It's also a good idea to hide which product is
yours, so you get less biased feedback.

------
simonholroyd
My team has done similar user testing in Starbucks quite a few times. Here's
my $0.02: If you're willing to be bold, walk right up to people and ask, you
don't need to offer free coffee or gift cards. We've found this is a better
strategy for a few reasons: 1. It's cheaper. 2. It does not dramatically
change the number of test users you can get in a given afternoon. And 3.
You're more likely to get critical negative feedback if you dont put the users
in the position of owing you for the coffee.

~~~
shardling
> If you're willing to be bold, walk right up to people and ask, you don't
> need to offer free coffee or gift cards.

If many people did this, it would quickly become an incredible annoyance. Have
some respect for the commons!

~~~
kenbellows
This. As much as it may work right now, because basically no one is doing it,
as soon as it becomes a popular method, it seem to me it will stop working
pretty quickly. Everyone doing it will become equivalent to a Jehova's Witness
knocking on your door.

That said, I imagine I'd be more okay with it if every time I said yes I got a
free coffee.

Aside: I wonder how different reactions would be in different
countries/cultures.

~~~
maw
In Mexico people try to trick you by asking something for something innocuous,
like the time, and then ask you for money.

Also a supposedly common scam is to get personal info such as names and phone
numbers in surveys and, later, to use this information to make fake kidnapping
calls sound more plausible.

The upshot is that you learn to ignore people who try to get your attention. I
don't think it would work too well here.

~~~
thenomad
On that note, I'd imagine that "don't ask for ANY personal information except
an email address, right at the end" is a pretty good rule for this sort of
testing anywhere in the world. Good point!

------
aashaykumar92
Along the same lines: I launched a social calendar app with my roommate for
students at UMichigan and to initially gain users, we bought $55 worth of
pizzas and to get a slice, all students had to do was download our app and
register as a user--we setup in one of the busiest halls on campus and
needless to say, the pizza ran out pretty quickly.

Looking back, it was great for the numbers and a was a good marketing
strategy, but we didn't gain much else from it. I wish we had setup a demo or
something of the sort so that we could have also received feedback. Asking
vital questions about the product should be geared toward customers, not as
much founders, and we learned that the hard way.

~~~
weisser
Some guys with an app paid for all food orders during a 4 hour block
(10pm-2am) at a popular foodtruck at SXSW. All you had to do to get a free ~$7
burrito (some people got a bunch of stuff) was to download their app and
create a photo album.

While this boosted downloads during that time period I have not looked at the
app (I don't even remember what it was called) since. It would have been more
memorable if they had discussed the app with me for the free burrito.

~~~
darkstar999
> I don't even remember what it was called

Don't let that happen, people! If you are paying $7+ just to get someone to
install your app, make it worth it!

~~~
weisser
Exactly. Sating my apetite for a burrito at 1:50am will make me happy but
there are better ways of generating more interest and in a way that people
will remember for less money.

------
unreal37
Interesting that sitting in a cafe offering people $5 cash for their opinion
would be a terrible idea, but offering them a free coffee is brilliant.

To @vishl, I don't take food from people on the street. I don't trust it.
"What if it's poisoned?" What you're thinking does happen - some people offer
me free candies, Reese Peanut Butter cups etc as an incentive to talk to me on
the street. I avoid them.

The coffee coming from Starbucks directly makes it safer.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I think psychologically the voucher is worth more because it's something they
were already going to spend, it's a tangible saving. I'm not a social
scientist or whatever, but logically I think that's how people may look at
this offer.

I definitely agree that if you're not producing the consumable that's a
benefit too (although of course they'd probably use $5 cash to buy a coffee).

~~~
albemuth
Dan Ariely has written about research around this topic:
[http://danariely.com/2009/08/05/the-trouble-with-cold-
hard-c...](http://danariely.com/2009/08/05/the-trouble-with-cold-hard-cash/)

~~~
mcintyre1994
Good read, thanks!

------
guylhem
You may enjoy taking a marketing class :-)

From what I understand, market analysis can always be done on the cheap if you
want to take some accuracy risk - there's a clear self selection bias here,
along with a geographic one (there may a common socioeconomic background for
the coffee shop patrons)

Also, if you care about kids, it may have worked better at a coffee shop in
front of a toy store in a mall, or at the food court if it's near say a pet
store, to get actual parents - there might be fewer parents at a typical
starbuck. But that is important if you believe they are you client - ie the
persons who'll make the purchase decision, but maybe it will be the kids
themselves in this example?

Critic aside, it's a great idea for a generalist app, but it may be less than
ideal for say a specialized app.

Also, you should consider the alternatives - how much feedback do you think
the same $50 may have got you using the mechanical turk?

There is a sincerity risk, but if you get say 100x more feedback, with the law
of large numbers, I think that at least the obvious flaws could be noticed.

~~~
learc83
>Also, if you care about kids, it may have worked better at a coffee shop in
front of a toy store in a mall

Also if you're actually trying to get kids to interact with the app, you'll
get a much better response if you have a woman with you. Parents are more
likely to be comfortable letting their children interact with a woman.

------
snowwrestler
> He never asked if I’d give him money today for it. He got feedback from
> someone he didn’t know would be a paying customer or not.

That's because verbal pricing feedback from random people tends to be terribly
inaccurate. Most people actually have a pretty poor conscious idea of what
they will buy and how much they would pay for a future product.

Many times I've seen people in focus groups say they would pay $hundreds for
an electronics product, then reveal that (for instance) they just had to sell
their stereo on Craigslist for rent money. (Translation: no way in hell they
would _actually_ pay $hundreds for the product.)

This sort of guerilla action is great for usability testing of a mass-market
product because the utility of the feedback increases with the ignorance of
the test subject. If your product can be understood and used by tech luddites,
it will work fine for tech savvies too.

But pricing research needs much more rigorous look at valid data on potential
markets and customers.

------
hawkharris
Too many early-stage companies focus on mobilizing people through — if you'll
forgive the dreadful buzzword — social media.

If you can connect directly with your audience face-to-face, as Jim did,
that's often a smarter strategy. I like the way Jim was able to segment his
audience in a low-tech way (chatting with the parent-kid teams who are his
core users/customers).

Yeah, you might be able to achieve a greater # of impressions online, but it's
much harder to make those impressions meaningful and to make sure that they
translate into action.

("Raising awareness" is complete bullshit. If people are aware but they don't
take action, no one cares.)

------
vishl
I've considered standing outside on a hot day with a cooler of icecream
sandwiches. At $1 each it's even more cost efficient, though people may not be
as willing to stop and chat as they are in starbucks.

------
deleted_account
I imagine a future where instead of running the gauntlet of clipboard wielding
public researchers, it'll be pseudo-entrepreneurs hawking their herp-derp OS
app.

------
adrianhoward
This sort of approach is a classic way of doing cheap usability testing.

If you've not done this sort of work before I'd recommend getting hold of the
(short and entertaining) "Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-it-yourself Guide
to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems" by Steve Krug. It'll give you a
bunch of useful tips on how to get the best out of our time.

------
laurentoget
I wonder how the manager of that starbucks feels about that.

On one hand you are buying some coffee.

On the other hand you are probably driving away the customers who can afford
to pay for their own coffee and do not feel like being your guinea pig.

~~~
thenomad
On the other, other hand, you're giving some of his/her customers an
interesting, novel experience where they get to feel that their opinion is
valuable. Oh, and ensuring that they'll remember that Starbucks far more than
most others.

------
will_brown
Does this remind anyone else of the South Park episode "Free Hat", where
Cartman writes "Free Hat" on the advertising poster in the belief that
freebies are necessary to attract people?

~~~
mseebach
Well, we clearly learned from the movie that freebies are, indeed, required.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrNrLly1vvM>

------
megablast
Asking if someone will pay is probably as valuable as not asking. Most people
aren't going to say something bad about your work, when you are right in front
of them. And talk is cheap.

~~~
learc83
You could ask them to fill write their responses on a piece of paper with no
name and drop it in a box. Make it clear that it's anonymous.

------
mkilling
The main investment here is time, especially compared to online usability
testing services (usertesting.com etc.).

That said, early in product development in-person feedback is invaluable and
you can get so much more out of it than of a simple video of a person using
your product.

------
chasing
Yeah, I like this. A founder I worked with did something similar but just gave
out gift cards to talk to people about their needs in the space she was
working in. Before having a product to show off.

It seems like a great way to get out of the echo-chamber a bit.

------
aantix
I've done this exact thing for images for a site I was building..

Most will say know but others are very willing and will even sign a release.
It's much cheaper than purchasing photos from a stock photography site and
much more fun.

