5 ms·

How to test whether your idea has a market

25 points by tzaman 14y ago

duiker101 14y ago
I see a lot of articles from you guys lately. It's cool, the articles are not bad and you are doing it the right way, you market your product by giving good articles. I think this is fine, just don't send out too much before you run out of content and become boring. Nobody would benefice from that. Once a week should be enough. Just my 2c.
- tzaman 14y ago
  Thank you, we've been talking about it actually, and decided to start out with a bit more frequently then ease out a bit. Being new on the market some awareness and traction can do us good :)
impostervt 14y ago
Would like to hear of an example where this worked. Even if I liked an idea someone pitched me on, I don't know if I'd give $10 to them to get early access to something they haven't started building yet. Perhaps I'm jading at seeing too many bad Show HN posts where I think, who would want that?
- ef4 14y ago
  It certainly works when you're selling to a business and you're showing how you can take away some real pain, or make them some real additional revenue. I have gone in with a demo and come away with a deal for real money. Then we built the real product around that customer's actual needs, which made it dramatically better than we could have by just guessing in advance how they would use it. Edit: Also see just about everything on Kickstarter, where people often pay real money for things that don't exist yet.
  - totalrobe 14y ago
    These things do exist - Kickstarter products are required to have prototypes and concrete deliverables.
  - impostervt 14y ago
    Can you share some info on what you built?
varunkho 14y ago
And to find potential customers other than your mom&friends, [0] HN post can certainly help! [0]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987836 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987836
totalrobe 14y ago
Asking for money with no product? This is also called panhandling...
fro 14y ago
Ten dollars seems like a token amount that most clients would give you to just say, "Hey why not, maybe this will turn into something." I'd make it a higher amount or just, you know, genuinely ask them whether they would buy and use your product. Most people will give you their honest opinion either way.
ef4 14y ago
There's a misconception that actually plays in your favor here: most people dramatically underestimate the execution risk of building a new product, particularly software. If you can communicate very clearly what the product is going to look like and what it's going to do, selling a product that isn't done yet is not much harder than selling one that is. In some ways it's easier, because the customers can fill in the details themselves, and they don't appreciate how hard it is to get all those detail right.
euros 14y ago
“Building a product to fit an existing market, is better than finding a market to fit an existing product.” - Unfortunately not my quote!
Toenex 14y ago
Isn't this preciously what Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/ http://www.kickstarter.com/] is for?
JimWillTri 14y ago
If you can get someone to pay you $10 for an application you may or may not build in a year then you are either a hell of a salesman or you found someone truly gullible.

25 points by tzaman 14y ago

I see a lot of articles from you guys lately. It's cool, the articles are not bad and you are doing it the right way, you market your product by giving good articles. I think this is fine, just don't send out too much before you run out of content and become boring. Nobody would benefice from that. Once a week should be enough. Just my 2c.

tzaman 14y ago
Thank you, we've been talking about it actually, and decided to start out with a bit more frequently then ease out a bit. Being new on the market some awareness and traction can do us good :)

impostervt 14y ago

Would like to hear of an example where this worked. Even if I liked an idea someone pitched me on, I don't know if I'd give $10 to them to get early access to something they haven't started building yet. Perhaps I'm jading at seeing too many bad Show HN posts where I think, who would want that?

ef4 14y ago
It certainly works when you're selling to a business and you're showing how you can take away some real pain, or make them some real additional revenue. I have gone in with a demo and come away with a deal for real money. Then we built the real product around that customer's actual needs, which made it dramatically better than we could have by just guessing in advance how they would use it. Edit: Also see just about everything on Kickstarter, where people often pay real money for things that don't exist yet.
- totalrobe 14y ago
  These things do exist - Kickstarter products are required to have prototypes and concrete deliverables.
- impostervt 14y ago
  Can you share some info on what you built?

varunkho 14y ago

And to find potential customers other than your mom&friends, [0] HN post can certainly help! [0]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987836 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987836

totalrobe 14y ago

Asking for money with no product? This is also called panhandling...

fro 14y ago

Ten dollars seems like a token amount that most clients would give you to just say, "Hey why not, maybe this will turn into something." I'd make it a higher amount or just, you know, genuinely ask them whether they would buy and use your product. Most people will give you their honest opinion either way.

ef4 14y ago

There's a misconception that actually plays in your favor here: most people dramatically underestimate the execution risk of building a new product, particularly software. If you can communicate very clearly what the product is going to look like and what it's going to do, selling a product that isn't done yet is not much harder than selling one that is. In some ways it's easier, because the customers can fill in the details themselves, and they don't appreciate how hard it is to get all those detail right.

euros 14y ago

“Building a product to fit an existing market, is better than finding a market to fit an existing product.” - Unfortunately not my quote!

Toenex 14y ago

Isn't this preciously what Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/ http://www.kickstarter.com/] is for?

JimWillTri 14y ago

If you can get someone to pay you $10 for an application you may or may not build in a year then you are either a hell of a salesman or you found someone truly gullible.