I Have a Plan and I Want You To Tell Me How I'm Wrong
So, I've always been a person who doesn't really come up with many great ideas, but I have a plan to try to make something decent anyways.
Step 1: Pick a Growing Market
I talked with various libraries and got access to market research tools like Reference USA, but I ended up picking a market I know about: SaaS companies.
Step 2: Find People To Interview
Find people who fit the buyer persona or who could be potential customers. I wasn't really sure who exactly would be, but I was thinking it should be small SaaS companies with at least $5k a month in revenue and 5 or less employees. I want to be able to sell to just one person, which I think it much easier then say enterprise sales.
Step 3: Interview at least 5 to 10 people
So, I tried to learn as much from The Mom Test as I could and a few other resources you can take a look at here: https://medium.com/@bwenneker/a-curated-list-of-customer-development-resources-40-a967c238729b. The important thing is that I don't ask any leading questions and don't try to get compliments because that will only lead me astray. I also want to try to potentially try to presell the software just as a way to get some validation.
Step 4: Build The Software
I'll figure this out once I know what kind of thing I need to build. My goal is to try to make it as simple as possible, so I can get the users to try it sooner rather than later.
So, how do you feel about my plan and what could I do better? Whether you think my plan is great or horrible either way I want to hear it.
You can even try to "do things that don't scale" before building the software, depending on the problem you are trying to solve. Like stitching existing tools together and copying data manually, and seeing how much value your customers could get from it. That will help guide your solution faster.
It’s a good plan 👍 . I’d start with a hypothesized and falsifiable problem that you then reach out to folks so there is some context for you as you do the user interviews, I can almost guarantee it won’t be the problem you end up solving but it gives you a starting line. Another thing, think about which roles are also increasingly difficult to hire for in a SaaS company and start with them as the target market.
Thanks for the reply. :) I was just a bit confused what you meant when you said " Another thing, think about which roles are also increasingly difficult to hire for in a SaaS company and start with them as the target market.".
Yeah I phrased that poorly. What I mean is the target market of the people that you get on these video chats with for the user interviews.