How to learn marketing and user research
I’m terrible at marketing and user research. Hey, they say admitting the problem is the first step to solving it, right?
So I decided I’m going to systematically learn these skills, and document my journey.
I’m developing an app (Get In Touch), and it’s ready for people to use, but when I’ve tried finding users, or talking to people about the product…I find both to be really intimidating. And I’m bad at them.
But I’m inspired by The Lean Startup and advice from countless startup founders, and I know that getting out there and talking to potential users is one of the most important things you can do.
To systematically learn these skills, I’m going to work my way through several books and courses. I’m going to write about the material I work through, because rethinking and articulating the ideas will help me understand them more deeply. And I’m going to implement them on Get In Touch, and maybe some other projects of mine (like Chaos Attractors), so I can get a feel for how to actually apply the principles.
In my next post I’ll start with the terrific book The Mom Test, on how to do excellent user research. (The title doesn’t have anything to do with the sexist stereotype about your mom supposedly not knowing anything about technology.)
I got my first 20 paying customers before I even had a product, can agree to this. In fact, you should have people willing to hand you cash before you even ship.
If you're interested in the basic script I use to get useful feedback and paying customers before there is even a product (it has a 8/10 response rate, 1/10 paid signup rate) do reach out on Discord tonight, I like to help others when I can:
do#3695
Hello! I'd be interested to hear your process for this, unfortunately am not on Discord though - any other ways you could share?
what's your whatsapp?
Thanks, I don't have whatsapp, have set up a Discord Solidair#1752 Cheers!
I also don't use Discord. My phone number (including on Whatsapp) is 530 213 3312.
nothing beats the mom test. Your mom gives you unconditional love, which makes it hard to get honest feedback. This book explains how to get signal from user interviews, even your mother.
A great primer for this is Talking to Humans https://www.talkingtohumans.com/ by Giff Constable et al.
I've heard of this. Thanks for the re-recommendation. After going through The Mom Test again, I'm planning to read Just Enough Research. I think I heard the author interviewed on some podcast, and it seemed like a really useful book, in a similar vein as The Mom Test (and maybe Talking to Humans).
Here's the link to my Chaos Attractors project, by the way: https://www.chaosattractors.com/