How do you get participants for user research / market validation?
I'm in the process of finding:
- My target market
- Whether I'm solving a problem that people will pay for
I'm curious to know, how do others find the right people to participate in interviews when there's no tangible product to get buy-in or incentive to exchange their free time?
I'm tried posts on subreddits so far and now I'm just starting the process of cold emailing. Wondering if someone has some tips as I'm new to this part of building 🤔
Here's an email I sent to teachers a few years ago to get customer development interviews scheduled. I sent about 50 emails, had 37 teachers respond with, "Yes, I'm happy to chat!" The key is to make the call about them and their experiences, NOT about you and your product. Also, to minimize the back and forth, I always provide a suggested time that they can react to. If that time doesn't work, they usually respond with a time that does.
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Hi <name>,
I'm an aspiring entrepreneur looking to understand the world of technology in the classroom, specifically from the teacher perspective, on a deeper level. I'm specifically curious about technology changes (or maybe it doesn't!) how you get through your daily tasks as a teacher. I'm not selling anything, but I AM really interested in understanding what's working, what isn't, and your actual experiences in the classroom. Are you open to spending 30 minutes answering a handful of questions on a phone or video call? If so, how does next Tuesday at 5:30 pm, your time, work?
Thanks for your reply, this is really good advice on not up-selling anything. I'm still getting used to cold contacting but personally find it a bit imposing specifying a specific time to talk in the email (from an empathy perspective, at least). Do you find that specifying a specific time is a key part to getting them over the line (as opposed to something softer like "when would be a good time to talk" or "interested in discussing further")?
I try to make it easy as possible to say yes or no. By proposing a time, I'm avoiding a sequence of events that waste more of their time and mental overhead. The typical yes response looked like, "I can't do that time, but I can do XX:XX on Wednesday!"
By asking them to propose a time to talk, you're adding another step or three to the process, which in my experience, makes it more of a hassle for the customer.
Makes perfect sense now you say it. I just want to say, I took some of your ideas. I removed any mention of a product and just asked to hear about problems and I got a positive reply on my first comms. Thank you :)
Yay!
Hey James,
I'm actually going through this process right now for the ~10th time and livestreaming the whole thing.
You can find it here if you're interested.
How's the response rate for your emails?
I usually go to forums, facebook groups, subreddits on where my target audience congretates. Then I start my surveys there. I have a framework that I follow to really get hyper responsives (people who would be willing to answer the survey)
Thank you, going to look at Facebook groups this weekend. Are you able to share ideas from your framework?
Yeah definitely.
Where shall we continue this conversation though? As it may need a lengthy convo.
I'd love to hear more on this too, if you're willing to share @erroltiozon
Thank you :) Happy to do a video call? I can reach out to the email in your bio if so