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Ask HN: How should I validate my tech-hiring MVP?
I've been holding on to an MVP that I created earlier this year but never even started marketing. The project is completely unvalidated, so that's one mistake. It's hard to tell if this is something anyone actually wants.
It's https://www.sookiestack.com/ - basically a way of automating the process of assigning and keeping track of take-home coding and design challenges (automatically creates a github repo for each candidate). Ideally it will cut down on the amount of time spent on this process.
I've considered doing a lot of cold emailing to see if I can get anyone to try it, but it would be better to get someone in my network to test it out and give feedback - see if it's useful for them. The problem is, my network kind of sucks.
Does anyone around here have any ideas of how I can get some beta users and start to validate the concept? Even better - if anyone is interested in beta testing (for free of course), it would help a lot.
- gus_massa 5y ago> Growth -> Unlimited challenges It looks like too many. > require a candidate to create something using your technology stack Do you run the code the candidates submit? Which languages do you support?
- newman8r 5y agoNo, we don't run any code. In its current state, the service would be geared towards companies who still largely want a fully manual review, but they have a problem organizing candidate communications/materials and getting feedback from their team and other stakeholders. Whether or not this provides enough value, I'm not sure. From my limited research, lots of companies are using combinations of shared inboxes, shared spreadsheets and other collaboration apps like notion.so. I feel like there might be room for some all-in-one solutions.
- wizwit999 5y agoIt's likely a red flag that youre not sure if your product provides value. How are you gonna convince customers if you're not convinced yourself?
- newman8r 5y agoAgreed - I should have validated it before I developed it. There's a good chance it's not useful - although I believe it may be. I can make an argument as to why it would be useful (it will save a lot of time) - but that's unproven.
- gus_massa 5y agoI'm not sure if it's useful in your case, but a recipe that I used to "solve" a problem is to sit with the people doing the real work. I was just drinking mate [1] and doing nothing. Just looking where is the real pain, and some minimal help, almost nothing. Later I made a (silly) program to solve a part of the problem an these reduce the time of the task to approximately one half. [1] Hi from Argentina! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(drink) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(drink) We use that as a metaphor of "not working".
- gaergase5y 5y agoSorry, but as a candidate, I wouldn't take something called sookiestack seriously.