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Ask HN: What questions to ask potential customers to validate idea?
So I have been working on a prototype for an idea but have not talked to a single potential customer yet. Seeing the posts on HN about (e.g. how important it is to sell first, build later), I am wondering what kind of questions to ask to engage these potential customers. Some background info:
- THese potential customers could be hiring managers or recruiters in a very niche industry.
- I know these potential customers to an extent that I have dealt with them in the past related to my field.
- I am sure if I get them on the phone/email, most of them will respond.
So how do I go about it ? Any ideas ?
- kellros 13y agoI'd suggest you go read The Lean Startup, as this is the source for the suggestions on HN. You validate ideas by applying validated learning: 1. Figure out what you want to learn (ex. an assumption: customers want this product because it allows them to easily do x) 2. Figure out how you will learn via metrics (ex. measure: how many customers sign up based on advertising based on this assumption) 3. Do what is required to gather the metrics. (ex. act: advertise based on the assumption to gather metrics for analyses to validate your assumption). Sort of sounds like Act/Track/Learn :) The Lean Startup proposes that you approach a product by asking the following questions: 1. Is this product valuable to my customers? 2. Would customers buy this product? 3. Would customers buy this product from me? 4. Can I build this product? Point 1 & 2 refer to validating the viability of ideas, while 3 & 4 is more of an introspection regarding availability of skills/resources/advantage etc. Good luck!
- toumhi 13y agoIt's quite a large topic, but the different steps could be : 1. formulate the problem of what you're aiming to solve, and the customer segments who you think have this problem (lean canvas / business model canvas can help you there) 2. ask questions to people part of your chosen customer segments and verify they have the problem 3. create a solution (MVP) to solve this problem 4. demo it to them and verify it solves the problem in a way that makes them pay :-) Ash Maurya goes into a lot of details about this process in "Running Lean" (highly recommended). The general idea is to test assumptions to convert them from hypotheses to facts, using a loop of build->measure->learn.