

I canceled the project: A success story of talking to your potential customers - luke_s
https://plus.google.com/117332097246383158508/posts/4WoTh3XpCBR

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patio11
This is world's better than discovering, post-launch, on the first time you
talk to an actual customer, that the customer has no need for the product. I
would caution you, though, that finding someone who won't buy the product is
not the same as proving people won't buy the product.

I could go to any teaching forum right now and find you thirty people who
won't pay for Bingo Card Creator, and/or think it is a sin to charge poor
little teachers $30 when they only make $60,000 a year and have to buy their
own paper. This isn't maximally relevant to the business, because I can
constructively prove that there exists an addressable channel to sufficient
teachers who _will_ pay that make it viable (on BCC's scale, at any rate).

This is one reason why I really like MVPs, by the way. You can often get a
close approximation of an actual customer acquisition strategy running on
them. Then, see if they'd take at least some action which suggests willingness
to pay. ("I can't find the buy button. Where is the buy button!?" has worked
for me, at least once.)

~~~
jdvolz
I second MVPs. The customer acquisition strategy is usually harder than the
actual application. I am guessing, and patio11 can back me up if he agrees,
that it is much harder to get a teacher to your site in a cost effective
manner and then get them to pay than it is to write an application that
randomizes a set of words and prints them out.

By concentrating on the hard part you don't waste time doing the usually
easier straight forward part you're already skilled at doing, only to find the
part (marketing) you know nothing about doesn't work at all.

I don't mean to sound preachy; it's just that I've made this mistake and I
don't want anyone else to if they can avoid it.

~~~
patio11
_I am guessing, and patio11 can back me up if he agrees, that it is much
harder to get a teacher to your site in a cost effective manner and then get
them to pay than it is to write an application that randomizes a set of words
and prints them out._

It is harder to get a couple hundred thousand teachers on your site than to
write an application. It isn't terribly difficult to get a couple of hundred
on the site, or a couple dozen to use the application, or a couple to use the
application with you staring over their shoulder.

I particularly like organic SEO / AdWords as early channels, because if you
can prove they work in microscale, they _typically_ won't totally break down
right after microscale. (Obviously, BCC isn't going to Facebook scales.) i.e.
if you can reliably turn $1 into $2 you can probably turn $1,000 into >
$1,000.

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athst
I disagree with this approach. Without at least a tangible prototype to show
someone, asking people whether or not they would pay for a product tells you
almost nothing. The natural reaction is to say "no, I don't need that."

If you're not that passionate about the idea, I suppose it's a good excuse to
not do it. But if it would be really amazing, most people wouldn't even
understand the idea until they had it in their hands.

~~~
skbohra123
Well, there's a need of a balance. But it's a good idea to first ask people if
they want something you would like to make for them. You are making things for
them, so ask them. I don't believe any more in the idea of 'you make it and
they will come'. They will come, only if they want it. So asking them is a
good way to save yourself wasting a whole lot of time based on your own
assumptions.

~~~
luke_s
As somebody that has made many things on the web and never had anybody come, I
have to agree :-) These days there is so much noise on the web that I feel you
have to be sure your idea really will grab peoples attention.

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TheSkeptic
The author has a point, and it's quite possible his idea wasn't worth pursuing
further.

This said, a few points should be made:

1\. A picture is worth a thousand words. It shouldn't be assumed that
individuals you poll about ideas and abstract product features understand them
the way you intend them to. You might simply be describing features in a way
that doesn't make sense to them, for instance. This is why wireframes and
simple prototypes are so valuable.

2\. You need a quality sample to make intelligent guesses about the viability
of a new product. You should not immediately assume that if you query 10
people about your idea and all 10 shoot it down you are not on to something.
Most businesses that are very profitable aren't convincing nine out of 10 (or
even five out of 10) potential customers to buy their products. Keep this in
mind.

3\. Just because your initial product concept (or implementation for that
matter) isn't viable doesn't mean that the problem that led you to develop the
idea doesn't exist. Instead of simply asking folks whether or not they like
your product concept, you should also seek to validate that you're trying to
solve a real problem. If you can confirm that there's a problem, you may only
be a few iterations away from a product concept that has a shot at success.

Bottom line: you don't want to give up on an idea too late, but you shouldn't
give up on an idea too soon either.

~~~
luke_s
I really like your bottom line! At the end of the day, it all comes down to a
really subjective subjective judgment on if you should proceed.

And frankly, I'm not sure that I have all the knowledge or experience to be
making the right decision. May people in this thread raised some very good
counter points and undoubtedly have more experience and knowledge than I.

However at this stage, I think I'll go away and test out the target market for
a few other ideas I have and see what kind of response I get. I think I could
do with a few more data points on what kind of response to expect from the
"talk to your target market" approach.

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rmason
I wonder how far DropBox would have gotten if he'd gone on Reddit and asked
people if it was something that they might want? It was the video that sold
it.

I think his concept to test before coding is right, but if he'd shown people a
video of his idea (even if it was totally mocked up) he might have gotten a
totally different reaction.

Programmers because we have plenty of practice are pretty good at taking ideas
and envisioning them as completed software. In other words we're good at
connecting the dots. But that's something the general public cannot do -
they've got to see it.

~~~
luke_s
You make a couple of really good points - programmers are much better at
visualizing how a solution would work than the general public. Also, sometimes
people really, really just don't know what they actually want :-)

However on the flip side if people can't understand what I am proposing or why
they would want it, it means I am going to have a much harder time selling it
to them. Suddenly my task is not about coding and marketing but more about
first building the market, so I can then sell to it. Its probably a good
opportunity for somebody, but I'm not sure that person is me :-)

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vaksel
you can't ask...people will never give you a straight answer.

the best approach is to build a mockup that has the signup and intro pages,
and a non-functional signup page(i.e. don't store credit cards)...then run
$500 worth of adwords through the site and see if anyone bites.

if $500 is too much, stop thinking that. Building out the feature set to make
the site functional would take you quite a bit of time...even if you only
"charge' yourself the minimum wage, you'll still end up wasting more "money".

~~~
sbisker
I've always wondered about the ethics of this approach. How would I feel if
someone told me they're provide an awesome service, _took my credit card
number_ and then told me the whole thing was some sort of "customer
development exercise"? Personally, I think I'd be a little miffed. Especially
if I _really_ needed that service, or was otherwise "counting on it." In the
worst case, I might assume the whole thing was a scam to collect credit cards.

Has anyone done this before? If so, did you find that people were generally
supportive, or ticked off?

~~~
jdvolz
I think the idea is to get them to the point where you would take their credit
card number, and instead say that you're developing the product and ask them
if they want to leave their email address. That's how I've read these
experiments in the past. Taking someone's credit card number without the
intention of selling them something feels fraud-like.

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dkrich
I just don't get why people are so obsessed with customer feedback in advance
of shipping, because it is usually useless. People are fickle, insensitive,
and generally don't know themselves as well as they think they do. They are
quick to say they would or wouldn't use something without any real thought
because talk is cheap (free in fact) while their money is not. This seems to
be the same phenomenon driving entrepreneurs to build products that are deemed
totally useless once they are out in public- they don't know themselves or the
perceived problem as well as they think they do. They think they would use
their own product, but start building before really trying to understand the
pain point and figuring out why it exists and how it came to exist. I think
the best way to approach a startup is the Steve Jobs method of building
something that you yourself really wish existed. Much easier said than done
for sure, but who ever said building a successful business is easy?

If you have a vision for something, it is impossible to translate to a
customer in any meaningful way short of actually building a version of it and
trying to sell it to them.

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aurelianito
What will you do when, in a few months, someone does the exact same thing you
thought about and becomes a billionaire?

~~~
luke_s
I dunno? What do _you_ do when it happens :-)

Seriously though, probably just buy their app and congratulate them on a job
well done. There are way more good ideas under the sun, than there is time to
develop them. If somebody else can make a good go of this one, then good luck
to them.

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sivers
Yes! I love this. Thank you for telling it in a succinct and human way.

I'm going to bookmark this and send people to it often.

I get lots of emails from people wanting to know what I think of their
business idea. 99% of the time it's a business that I would never use. (I
don't have an iPhone or iPad. I'm not looking to share things online with
friends. Etc.)

I tell them to just ask their potential customers, not me. But your post
describes it much better. Thanks for writing it.

~~~
luke_s
Thanks! I think at the end of the day, the only opinion which really, matters
is that of the person who will be spending the money.

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citricsquid
I think it depends on what you are and what your idea is. If you're a
developer and it's a product you can have a prototype built for in a small
amount of time (say 1 or 2 weeks) then _just fucking do it_ but obviously if
you're a business development person who needs to contract out you have to
approach it differently. However the way people articulate ideas matters _a
lot_ , so unless you're 100% confident in your ability to articulate ideas
then I can see this being the cause of missed opportunities.

If I have an idea I believe will work well, I build it, if it fails it fails,
asking people isn't something I'd base the choice to make or not make
something on just because the people I know is limited, there is always
_someone_ out there who will use your product (even if it's just you) it's a
big gamble to assume those you asked is representative of that group.

~~~
luke_s
Its a good idea in some cases, but unfortunately I don't have two weeks to
create a prototype. I'm actually trying to get together a minimum viable
product, and launch in a few months of long weekends I have free, while my
family is overseas.

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keeptrying
There's a certain nuance on how to ask the questions about a possible product
that your attempting to build and what part of the feedback you should listen
to.

If your new to this kind of thing, you'll mostly hear what you want to hear.
An example would be the focus group study that was done for the aeron chair -
no one wanted it.

To learn from people doing customer development in the field and for
clarifying your own experience I would recommend
[http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-
circle/topics?pl...](http://groups.google.com/group/lean-startup-
circle/topics?pli=1) .

Also follow SK Murphy's blog. He seems to have this down to a science when
building B2B applications.

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selvan
If you had launched MVP and asked feedback on that, it would have been more
accurate. Optimize your time/energy towards validating your idea via MVP. If
it takes less than 4 weeks to validate an idea, my bet would be go for it.

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wccrawford
I wouldn't listen to people who didn't want it. They don't count. There are
MILLIONS of people who don't want your product.

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone has pitched an idea on a website
and the people shot it down, but he wrote it anyhow and it turned out to be a
huge success.

Instead, listen to the ones who DO want it. They are the paying customers. It
is their interest that will make the project a success.

I didn't see that he got any 'great idea!' replies, but he might have just
left them out because they didn't improve the story. We don't know.

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ww520
Sometimes it's difficult for the users to see your vision before it's built,
and they would reject your idea prematurely. Sometimes the users don't know
better beforehand but love the product once they use it, especially for
something brand new. It's a rare skill to communicate your vision precisely in
words.

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rokhayakebe
"smashing success". You have to love this guy. He succeed in not wasting time
on a project that his audience does not want. Kudos.

On the other side, though, what would have happened if JD went around and
asked about Twitter or Zuck did customer development before writing FB?

~~~
ww520
Or ask people in the 90's do they need another search engine.

~~~
enjo
I think you would have gotten a resounding yes on this one.

"Would you be intersted in a seaarch engine that is much better at finding the
content your actually looking for?" is a yes every time.

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infocaptor
what if they were not your target users? I would never close down a potential
project by asking just a bunch of forum users. Maybe people who would pay
never hang out in forums. They always google for their needs. You should run a
campaign in google adwords and see how many hits you are getting. Then you can
decide if you want to close the project or not. The verdict is still out IMHO

Nilesh <http://www.mockuptiger.com>

