How do you validate a free product / social network?
Hi everyone,
I'm working on a side project right now and have created a bare bones MVP to validate interest.
I've asked friends and family for input and have reached out to people to use / sign up for the online product and to complete a survey form. Because it's still a pretty manual process of asking people to try it I don't have hundreds of people, only around 20-30 people which I realize is not a lot. However, of that pool the % has been quite high in terms of people saying they'd use it, and exactly what additional functionality they're looking for in order to use it.
Most post online suggest that the best validation is seeing if people are willing to pay for it; however, in this case it's not a product that I would charge for.
What's the best way of fully 'validating' my idea / project- is there a certain # or benchmark that I need to aim to 'onboard'?
:) Also appreciate any ideas you have on ways to collect more user feedback and early users.
Appreciate all of your help!
How about sliding in an anonymous NPS valuation (would you recommend this product on a scale of 0-10) and see what's the rate of engagement and the overall score?
If both are low - then maybe you're getting the false positives.
But yeah - just thinking out loud here, I myself have a great idea for a free app that I'm not sure how to properly validate unless I really charge for it (the ultimate market test).
Good luck 🙏
For a social product, a user's experience is largely determined by the interactions they have with others. Everyone's going to have unique interactions, which means everyone's experience will be different. So it's kind of pointless to ask people if they'd like using what you want to build, because they can't possibly know.
Validation is just the process of minimizing the risk that you invest a ton of time into something that doesn't work. Here's what I might do in your shoes:
Hey csallen, thanks for the reply! So I definitely do see the behaviour being mirrored online in many places.
Re #2- I do have a MVP and people have used it. I’m wondering if it’s more of a pre-MVP because people said that it’s interesting and they would use it if they had added features a,b,c. So just wondering if I should continue to develop a,b,c and how many people should be saying this before I go ahead and do it.
I am in similar spot as you.
I make a product that will mostly be free, with only some very specific stuff for very specific people behind the paywall.
I am thinking more and more about doing something a la small scale crowdfunding.
I plan to setup a landing with my vision described as best as I can.
I will setup email form, as a traditional way to measure interest (I already have newsletter form so I actually might be able to measure if new vision for the product makes people more excited, compared to what I currently have).
But ALSO I will setup Patreon or some other donation "thing" and I will basically say "hey, if this product excites you and if you want to ensure that it actually happens, support me with a donation of your choice".
Of course in order to do that you need to have SOMETHING build first, so that it does not seem like a scam, but you say you do, so I think you have no excuse.
Even if product is free, we should both ask for the money.
Hey. Actually i trying to solve the exact problem with my own side project :)
A social network for validate ideas with a cool bonus - it’s automatically create for you a landing page
You can check it out here: https://land-ified.com
There only 2 users right now
I trying my self growth :)
But you can check it out and see if it something that might help you and show your support by sharing a post :)
With you luck
Naveh
I highly recommend you read "the mom test".
Pitching your idea to friends and family is not a great idea b/c most of the time its just "false positive" and they will say nice things to you.
You will learn a lot from the book and you can develop a way to ask the right questions to validate your idea
Hi Jamal, I agree! I've actually read the book. A handful of the people are from online groups and I did see what was being said in terms of what questions need to be asked and how to frame it in such a way that they don't just tell you what you want to hear.
Any thoughts in terms of other channels to test through, what a metric to work towards?
Appreciate your help and recommendation.
I don't have much experience with social networks, I worked in the past with a startup on product like this and I can say it's not easy to validate.
as you probably know, any social network increasing in value to each member as more users join. So its not enough that you convince someone to join, but you need to convince them to bring their friends as well.
So I would say the metric of success here is how many times a current user would share content from inside the network to outside or how many friends they invite.