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11 Comments

Customer research: How hard should it be?

I think like quite a few people here, I've been through the experience of building a product in isolation for months, only to announce it to crickets. This time around, I'm resisting the urge to code and doing as much customer research as I can.

I'm paying for LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and trying to get an interview with someone I think could benefit from my idea. I'm also connecting to people inside companies I'd be interested in doing business with.

So far I've sent 7 messages, each variations of this:

Hi ____,

I'm building a tool to gather product feedback from across the web and organize it into a dashboard that helps product managers identify trends and compare against competitors.

Would you have 10-15 minutes to chat about challenges you have? I'm not selling anything, but trying to understand your pain points. I know your time is valuable, and I'd like to pay for an hour at your hourly rate to compensate you.

Calendly link: https://calendly.com/zchtodd

This hasn't garnered a response yet, but I'm not sure if that's because sending only 7 messages is laughable (i.e. expect 1/100 to respond), or if it means my messaging or idea is somehow not intriguing.

Looking forward to hearing others experiences with customer development, and how hard they had to work to get conversations.

Thanks!

  1. 2

    Personally, I think paying for Sales Navigator is a waste of money. You can go the open networker route and send people invitation requests including a message to the person without paying which I've had the same if not slightly better results over LinkedIn paid accounts.

    Baremetrics had a webinar a couple weeks back with Lead Sourcing hacks in which you can use those to also find perspective customers to find feedback from. https://my.demio.com/recording/4irETUJk

    Also, find where your customers hang out (Reddit, blogs, meet ups, etc) and start connecting with them there.

  2. 2

    Hey Zach, I tried cold emailing before with very similar results to what you described (but with ~150 emails), so I was looking for an easier and more automated way to get feedback.

    Here's what I did for DB Dash (https://dbdash.io) that got me a few customer interviews:

    • Created a landing page with an "Early Access" link
    • The "Early Access" link leads to a Google Form where I ask some questions about what tools they currently use etc, and asking if they would agree to a short call
    • Then I drove some targeted traffic to the landing page using Facebook Ads (running a few days for $30)
    • For those who answered yes to a meeting followed up a few times over email to actually schedule it

    The stats were like this:

    Saw facebook ad: 29711
    Visited site: 855
    Opened survey: 101
    Filled out survey: 18
    Agreed to a call: 5

    Not a lot but I liked the ratio of effort / price to results, and I did gain some very valuable insight. It's a cliche at this point, but really nothing can substitute direct contact with your customers.

    Of course, I recommend you read The Mom Test too, it's not long and gives excellent insight into this topic.

    P.S. Here's the link to the form if you're interested:
    https://forms.gle/E1AcH1L3kuzKXwNY7

    1. 1

      Interesting that you were able to drive that much traffic for $30. I had considered this approach but dismissed it initially based on my experiences with Google Ads basically devouring my budget. I'll have to look into Facebook and see what kind of traffic I can drive.

      Thanks for the feedback!

  3. 2

    You’re right, 7 isn’t enough to get any real idea. You may also want to think about whether LinkedIn is the right place to connect with them? Are they active there?

    As for the copy... it’s boring business speak. Can you make it more casual, conversational and maybe add some humor?

    Have you read The Mom Test? It offers some frameworks for outreach and then will help you with how to ask questions when you get a meeting set up.

    Here’s a format straight from the book:

    1. You’re an entrepreneur trying to solve horrible problem X, usher in wonderful vision Y, or fix stagnant industry Z. Don’t mention your idea.
    2. Frame expectations by mentioning what stage you’re at and, if it’s true, that you don’t have anything to sell.
    3. Show weakness and give them a chance to help by mentioning the specific problem that you’re looking for answers on. This will also clarify that you’re not a time waster.
    4. Put them on a pedestal by showing how much they, in particular, can help.
    5. Explicitly ask for help.

    Then there are some examples of how that might look as a message.

    1. 1

      Thanks so much, that's really helpful. I was looking for some perspective, and this helps a lot. I keep hearing about The Mom Test, I'll have to check it out.

      1. 1

        Sorry - was a bit blunt with the boring business speak comment 😁. But if you’re doing cold outreach you’ve got to stand out otherwise yours will sound like the other 20 messages they received today.

        1. 1

          No worries, I think it's a good point for sure.

  4. 1

    Hey Zach,

    It's best if you prototype the idea based on your assumptions to validate what you're trying to do. Asking questions over the phone might give you lacklustre answers because it's intangible. I suggest building a prototype on figma/sketch bring in 5 users and have them go through it to get some real feedback if you're on the right path. There's a process called a design sprint that helps you to go from an idea to a validated prototype in 4/5 days. It's helped our clients a lot.

    1. 1

      I like the idea, just a little worried if I present a prototype, it might bias the conversation more toward opinion-based questions, like "do you like this?" I'm sure it can be done well and avoid that, but I'm a novice at this for sure.

      1. 1

        Ok so, I'm glad that you acknowledge the fear of it being biased and you're right it can be done well! Basically you're looking for signal v noise when it comes to qualitative research and user testing. If one person dislikes a feature and 4 others don't then it's noise. Whereas the signal would be if 4 people like a certain feature.

        Ideally, you don't guide the user at all because when they're at home you're not going to be there to help them out, it has to be usable by itself. Which is why you should instead, set up a scenario and then have them take it from there and ask them to think out loud on each screen.

        Read the Design Sprint book by Jake Knapp, it'll help you tons. I'm sure. If you also want to know more about product development my agency posts bite-sized content frequently. https://www.instagram.com/vbwizards

        PM me if you want me to answer more questions, I'd be happy to help!

        1. 1

          Makes sense. Thanks for the feedback, I'll have to check out Design Sprint.

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