Let's build a product (Part 2): User Interviews
You need to know if your idea is any good
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Last time on digital thoughts…
We discussed coming up with an idea and the different types of businesses. If you want to read that you can find it here.
Roll the intro!
You just spent a year and a half building the perfect product. You are ecstatic because everyone you talked to about your idea was supportive and told you that you are going to be rich!
It is the week before launch, you and your developers are cleaning up that last remaining bugs. You have a countdown on all your socials teasing screenshots and inspirational quotes talking about beating all the odds and showing up everyday.
Then the magical day arrives, you are launching in 5…4…3…2…1…
It’s a little anticlimactic. You were expecting to break the internet and have a lot of signups, but it’s 6 AM in the east coast. People are still waking up.
Then a couple more hours go by and still crickets.
Now you are banking on Hawaii.
Eventually you realize it is dinner time and you haven’t eaten anything all day.
The next day more of the same and then the next and the next…
You think to yourself what happened!? Everyone I spoke to said they loved it and that I was going to be a millionaire
WHERE ARE ALL THOSE PEOPLE!!!!
Coming up with the idea is the easy part. Coming up with an idea that people will pay for, that is difficult. This to me is where many people make or break their product. Its time to talk to other people!!!!
Now don’t get scared. They will more than likely not bite you, but I can’t make any promises.
If you get one and only one thing out of anything I say it is this:
You HAVE to talk to your customers. I don’t care if you’re just starting or already a success. You need to always have a pulse of what your customers want and more importantly need. You see many large companies fail because they stray too far away from what their customers wanted. Retail recently went through this. The ones that pivoted and embraced online shopping survived, like Target and Kohl’s, and the ones that didn’t are either gone or about to be gone, think Montgomery Wards and Sears.
Product market fit is it’s own separate topic that we will discuss later on but this is a big step towards finding it.
User interviews
There is an amazing book that I recommend you read called “The Mom Test.” It is a very fast read, even for someone who reads as slow as I do.
If you don’t want to read it the general premise of the book is people will not give you constructive feedback if they know you are building something. Most people will tell you how amazing the idea is regardless if they think it is good or not, because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. The issue with this is you as a builder don’t receive constructive feedback. This leads to a very unsatisfying business. What people usually don’t lie about is their experiences.
So Zain how do I get feedback if I am not telling people what my solution is!?
To this I respond with you have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.
You ask people what problems they experience? You can even bring up the exact problem your idea is trying to solve. Just ask them “Hey, I was wondering do you guys ever experience [insert problem]”?
If they say no, your discovery is over at that point. You can ask and prove for other problems they might be facing for a possible pivot.
If they say yes then you follow up with “How have you guys solved this problem? Have you guys looked for solutions or pay for a solutions currently?”
These questions are very important because they tell you how big and annoying this problem is. If they just brush it off like “oh we only have to deal with it a couple of times a year and just have our interns fix it.” then it’s not annoying enough for them to pay for a solution.
Now if they say something like “We lose so many hours to this. We have been looking for a solution but nothing really gives us what we need.”
JACKPOT! Now you can pounce and ask them what they are looking for in a solution and how much would they be willing to spend…etc.
During this whole interaction they have no idea that you are building a solution. For all they know you are just a concerned citizen worried about them giving them a shoulder to cry on. You were able to get constructive feedback and validate or invalidate your idea!
Either way this is great because either you have a signal to keep going or you need to pivot. The best part about this is you can do all of this before spending any money!
Another very important thing to remember is that you are not your product. If someone doesn’t like your idea that doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Building a product can become very personal but it is important to be in love with the problem, not your product.
Read The Mom Test. Trust me it will change your life!
Now what?
You have talked to many potential customers and validated your idea. You even got a general price point for your solution! (GOOD JOB!) You are all set now right? Now you just put your head down and trap yourself in the dark room and build your product and them emerge out of the abyss like a phoenix rising from the ashes!
NO…please don’t do that!
You need to be constantly talking to your users/customers. You can do it multiple ways. You can reach out to the people you already spoke to. You can find new people to talk to. You can build in public and bring people along for the ride. Or you can you can have a newsletter documenting everything…
So what am I building?
I have been tinkering with AI and want to create a local AI research agent that will retrieve studies in your domain and send you a weekly summary. You will be able to download the articles you find interesting and create a second brain that you can “chat with” to answer your questions. This product falls into “dogfooding” because I'm building this for my own use case and also to learn. I will admit I am still working out exactly what I want this product to be, but that's the general gist.
I have no idea how to do this, but that is half the fun. Maybe by the end of this it’ll be something completely different. To me the journey is more fun than the destination.
How can you support others:
Please consider donating to the less fortunate. This is a reminder not only for you but also for myself.
or donate to a charity of your choice. A little bit goes a long way.
How you can support me:
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Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or leave a comment.
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I hope you have a great day!
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