4 ms·

At the earliest stages, you should just be identifying the problem. Interview general folks in your industry and ask, 'would you like a simpler XXX'. 'what is t

At the earliest stages, you should just be identifying the problem. Interview general folks in your industry and ask, 'would you like a simpler XXX'. 'what is the most painful ZZZ'. 'what would get you to try a new service'. From that small set, draw up your idea and re-interview those folks. if they like it, you should present the same drawings to a wider scope and see if it still has gravity. The next step is to test the market and publish your solution through adsense . I'm unaware of another method to test an idea as well as adsense. it would be great to hear some other ways of testing an audience before building.

sdrinf 16y ago
You misunderstood the question completely. simpler XXX, and painful ZZZ _presumes_ an existing problem hypothesis. However, past data points of both my own, and most startupers clearly shows, that our problem hypothesises generally suck at conceptual level. This is what I mean by de-risking: I want to take out this unnecessary risk of blind guessing, and delegate hypothesis discovery to those _with the data_.
- endtime 16y ago
  I didn't understand your question either. It feels very...jargon-heavy. It sounds like your question is: if you know who you want to sell to, can you just ask them what they want rather than polling them for feedback on different ideas? Honestly, I think people often don't know what they want because they don't understand which things can be made simpler. That's why someone with a different perspective (hackers) can learn about a market, have some new insight, and come up with something disruptive.
  - sdrinf 16y ago
    you're right in the disparity of understanding between customers, and service providers. More generally, you can't ask potential customers about "what they want", for reasons that are many. On the other hand, professionals (target market for above) 1, do know what their own pain points are; and 2, have a firm understanding on how much it impacts their pocket; (Note, that I'm talking about professionals here, and not "people in general") Harvesting these informations with the added constraint of "software solutions", can lead to much better educated guesses on what would be worth for future investigations.
  - lnp 16y ago
    > learn about a market, have some new insight, and come up with something disruptive This, how to this without the magic? What are the (universal) questions you would ask to potential customers to come up with a problem worth solving?

sdrinf 16y ago

You misunderstood the question completely. simpler XXX, and painful ZZZ _presumes_ an existing problem hypothesis. However, past data points of both my own, and most startupers clearly shows, that our problem hypothesises generally suck at conceptual level. This is what I mean by de-risking: I want to take out this unnecessary risk of blind guessing, and delegate hypothesis discovery to those _with the data_.

endtime 16y ago
I didn't understand your question either. It feels very...jargon-heavy. It sounds like your question is: if you know who you want to sell to, can you just ask them what they want rather than polling them for feedback on different ideas? Honestly, I think people often don't know what they want because they don't understand which things can be made simpler. That's why someone with a different perspective (hackers) can learn about a market, have some new insight, and come up with something disruptive.
- sdrinf 16y ago
  you're right in the disparity of understanding between customers, and service providers. More generally, you can't ask potential customers about "what they want", for reasons that are many. On the other hand, professionals (target market for above) 1, do know what their own pain points are; and 2, have a firm understanding on how much it impacts their pocket; (Note, that I'm talking about professionals here, and not "people in general") Harvesting these informations with the added constraint of "software solutions", can lead to much better educated guesses on what would be worth for future investigations.
- lnp 16y ago
  > learn about a market, have some new insight, and come up with something disruptive This, how to this without the magic? What are the (universal) questions you would ask to potential customers to come up with a problem worth solving?