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33 Comments

Is it time to pivot or am I jumping the gun?

I've recently launched the closed beta for Pluckd.. and now I've very anxious.

Pluckd right now is a skill endorsement tool. Companies register their employees and let them rate each other away. Because I like IH, you can all skip the waiting list straight to the beta on beta.pluckd.co provided that you give me some feedback 😉

The vision is to capture what people think of one another to draw an intricate diagram of how your company operates, find where conflicts exist and try to use the hive mind to fight office politics. It's a tall order, but we must start somewhere.

As I said: I'm very anxious I got the customer hypothesis wrong: maybe the HR departments from big companies are not bothered by stupid politics as I am as an office grunt. I've reached HR people from my network with the beta and it's been hard to make them even try the platform... :(

Right now, I don't know whether I should pivot right away or pursue the current market target a bit longer. It's important to decide this right away, because I am expecting this sort of feedback before creating any new feature.

So here's my question to you:
Take your current position. Imagine a tool that could give a clear, ubiquitous view of how you and/or your team is viewed inside a company (i.e. taking the bias out of performance reviews). Would you be interested in that?

  1. 3

    Find out why they are not interested! Trying or thinking of pivoting every other day is what happens to every entrepreneur but stick with it! Find out why and then think about it. I touch on this a lot and self reflect on my blog medium.com/generationzeo

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      What they usually tell me is that they simply forgot or didn't have the time... which is kind of the same as saying they were not interest, right? Maybe, as @Betilfan put it, they fear the additional workload or maybe the product simply isn't there yet.

      In either way, I could try refine to product based on what they ask me... OR I could pivot to another market. I'm tending towards the latter, but the beta is out for less than a week and I don't know if I'm being too rash.

      1. 1

        Hi Fernando, any update on how things are going?

        1. 1

          Hi @grego! I've concluded that HR was indeed the wrong target.

          Right now I'm translating the app. It's obvious in retrospect, but the customers I'm more likely to reach at this point are the people from my network and these are mostly from back when I lived in Brazil.

          I'm also working with one of our beta testers. He owns a company that scaling up and now he is having trouble tackling morale and engagement. Pluckd might be able to help, but we're still trying to shape the solution (instead of, you know, just tackling a feature or whatever).

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            I see, makes enough sense to go to your community of connections etc.

            I know a name isn’t everything, it does matter as you know. What is the story behind the name Pluckd?

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              No story, it just popped in my mind. I liked it (as in, you are plucking talent fruits from your company tree)
              and since I didn't want to spend time looking for a name, I settled with that.

      2. 1

        I would say after a week it's highly likely that you're being too rash. The answers they are giving feel vague, and potentially fake to save your feelings. Try reframing your questions to ask them what have to have in a product like yours, what they cannot have, and what they would definitely purchase.

  2. 3

    My personal opinion is this is a product that is being marketed to the team that could potentially incur additional workload as a result. They’ll view it as a list of grievances they need to fix.

    With that said, from a product standpoint based on what you’ve said it’s not time to pivot. You need more research. Ask them why they aren’t buying, then ask them what it needs to do in order to get them to purchase.

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      Do you think there is a rule of thumb for when to pivot? Should I only pivot when I'm confident enough with the research result or should I set some sort of deadline for myself?

      1. 3

        I have found time-based deadlines to be very artificial and not a good criteria to stop. Because those 3 months could be over but you wouldn't know WHERE to pivot to.

        Provided you want to continue solving the same problem albeit with another product/service, you want to pivot only when you have a crystal clear hypothesis of what's your next MVP. Otherwise you are doomed to repeat exactly the same experience you're going through right now.

        Your product does one thing - provide information on employees. If they are not adopting it, then it means they don't care about the exact type of information your product is providing. So, the most important thing to do right now is Mom Test style interviews to understand what type of information do your targeted groups of people really care about.

        I have two guesses as to why companies may be shy:

        1. "Hard" skills are very teachable so I wouldn't personally care as much about how good a coder someone is for example. OTOH I have repeatedly seen "soft" skills to be the make-or-break factor in how incredible the employee turns out to be. Literally every memoir by a successful founder speaks to this.

        For example, a product that helps build out those "baseball cards" for communication style and biases that Ray Dalio talks about in his Principles book seem super helpful and no product exists to build them.

        Does your product rate people on criteria the higher ups care about?

        1. Cooperation vs. Competition. For example, the baseball cards I mentioned don't pit people against one another - something I imagine any manager would be concerned about because rating each other can create a hostile culture and become a popularity contest - but rather make an org work together more fluidly, so everyone is proud to display it because it promotes cooperation instead of competition.

        My guess is if your product is more about getting the skill rating of potential candidates then a competition style format works because getting hired is intrinsically a competitive activity. But if your product is to be used amongst existing employees, it would need to be biased toward promoting cooperation and no competition at all.

        Lastly, the way you currently describe your product (for existing employees), I suspect you are talking to the wrong people altogether. As others suggested, HR doesn't directly benefit from your product as you currently describe it. So they don't care. You need to talk to the people who will directly benefit from internal ratings of employees of each other aka the managers who manage and promote employees.

        Assuming you want to stick to the type of information your product currently helps provide, possible adoption strategies:

        1. Top-down, one company at a time (your current strategy): Find a higher up who cares about the kind of information your product produces or do a Mom Test to dig what is the information they want but struggle to get. I recommend reaching out to the highest ranking people you can find in the company - CEO, CTO, etc. They will either respond if they are themselves passionate about getting more insights into their employees or they'll direct you to the right people who are then more incentivized to seriously work with you because the direction came from up high.

        2. Bottom-up: People can sign up and rate their peers (doesn't matter if their company hasn't bought in). This would sort of be like the rate-your-professor sites where the teacher doesn't necessarily signup to be rated, but students submit them to the site with their rating. If you can get adoption, you can then transition this into adoption strategy #1 as companies then have actual data to judge if they want it. As for monetizing this experience, it would either be delayed until you transition to adoption strategy #1 or you can make affiliate commissions selling courses to those rated poorly on the skill the course helps with or companies pay to unlock the skills rating of potential candidates they are interviewing to hire (now HR cares!)

        3. Be the rider on an existing platform. Sort of like how WPEngine rides on the popularity of WP, your product could ride on top of Job Search platforms or LinkedIn aka scenarios where knowing the skills rating of people becomes urgent. And for monetization, it could be partnership with these platforms or companies pay to unlock the skill rating of potential candidates.

        There could be more strategies of-course, and depending on which strategy you are evaluating, who you talk to changes.

        Hope this helps! Good luck!

        1. 1

          This is an amazingly valuable reply. Thank you for that!

          Your point about hard skills being less valuable and the risk of creating a hostile culture is very important. I went with hard skills first as they were easier to build, but now I see that without soft skills and features that promote thankfulness we are below the minimum from a MVP's standpoint.

          For the strategy stand-point, I think Bottom-up may be more scalable. If we manage to build something people are truly excited about, we might end up being referred more, which is the cheapest way to adquire users.

          1. 1

            Absolutely. Another thing is if it's bottom-up (i.e. their company isn't directing them to it), how are people going to discover and make a habit of using it? And why would they use your thing over something more "habitual" like LinkedIn recommendations? I think the question of "how do I make this uniquely helpful?" is way more burning in the bottom-up strategy than the others.

            Glad I have been of help. Keep us posted on how it goes!

      2. 1

        My rule of thumb for pivoting is this: give it ALL you have got for 3 months then ask "are the results encouraging me to keep going?"

        Most people will always say "stick with it" but the truth is sticking with a dead horse will not make it any less dead. Treat your product like a romantic relationship: if you are giving it all your love and it's not loving you back, end the relationship and move on!

  3. 2

    @Brauhaus, I wouldn't give up yet. It seems like now is the perfect time for this due to the coronavirus.

    1. In your outreach emails to HR reps, have you tried writing anything like this:

    "If your company has implemented a hiring freeze, we can help you to identify internal talent to fill needed positions."
    "If your hiring budget has been cut due to the recession, we can help you to achieve your recruiting goals by identifying internal candidates with the skills that you need."

    @Brauhaus, the key here is to try to tie your solution to a need that is timely and immediate.

    1. Have you tried reaching out to employees who can spread this inside of companies for you? You could send employees emails with this language:

    "We can help you get promoted by telling your HR reps about skills that you have."
    "You may not realize that HR reps at your company are looking to fill senior positions that you are qualified for -- but they don't know about your skills. We can help you to get better jobs within your company by sharing your skills with managers."

    @Brauhaus, the key with this technique is to speak to the benefits that other stakeholders can get from Pluckd, not just the features that you offer.

    @Brauhaus, if you want more tips like this, then I think you'll like my website, SplashPad. SplashPad helps you write better outreach emails by suggesting language that helps you to attract attention and sell your product -- while you write. See https:getsplashpad.com.

    Good luck! This idea can do a lot of good at this time.

    1. 1

      Your reply left my all optimistic again. Thank you for that!

      I've joined SpashPad's waiting list. I not planning to send cold emails right now (still mom testing), but your great copy-writing could be applied in many places!

      1. 1

        Awesome. Glad to hear it.

  4. 1

    I think you need early adopters. A bit like when slack first came out or Jira it was too innovative for most companies who’ll wait until something is well known before using it.

    You want to find the people who’ll give you a shot regardless. I suggest a mom test approach talking to teams, which will over time morph from a learning exercise to a selling one.

    Get your first customers this way and you’ll get so much information. You may or may not pivot based on this.

    A pivot doesn’t have to mean start again, it could just mean adjust altitude slightly and set a new course.

    1. 1

      Your advice is hands on and concrete. I very much liked it!

      1. 1

        Cool thanks. I think your idea and this space has a bright future. We have started using a package called Lattice where I work, in the same niche, and so far I quite like using it. You might be on a trend, especially with work from home happening a lot more these days.

        1. 1

          We have Lattice as one of our main competitors. What are the features you use/like the most: the Engagement (eNPS, Pulse surveys) or the Performance (Reviews, Goals, Praises) one?

          1. 2

            At this early stage, I'd say all of that! But mostly the updates/reviews.

  5. 1

    Maybe try targeting upper management like @Cannonball2134 mentioned. The problem I see here is that HR could be the wrong target audience entirely. HR seems like people who carry out people administration, whereas someone in the company more focused on culture could be a better fit for your product. Think someone who more aligns with the job title “director of people” or “director of culture”.

    1. 1

      Yeah, HR may indeed be the wrong target. Your comments corroborates to the answers I'm getting.

      I'm not sure a "director of people" would be the right target though...

  6. 1

    As a software engineering leader, I think you're broadly on the track of something beneficial, but you haven't refined a few key elements of your positioning yet.

    I think you need to evaluate who your target user persona is and who your buyer persona is. I believe in your market they are going to be two different groups. I think you are correct in your assumption that the buyer is going to be an HR resource. However, the HR team probably isn't going to be your primary user group.

    You're also most likely going to have two different categories of users, the individual contributors, and the line managers. You'll need to figure out the problems unique to those two different groups of users and how your product solves those problems.

    Then you need to figure out how to craft that value messaging in a way that appeals to the group that is going to be buying your product, which is most likely going to be the HR resources.

    As a point of comparison, my company uses OfficeVibe (https://officevibe.com/) as a team feedback tool.

    1. 1

      This is very true. Right now I'm testing the business preposition with customers (i.e. HR people) and wondering whether or not I should be focusing on another persona (like a team leader).

      But my user is different persona. I am aware that one of the challenges of this product will face is how to entice the user to come and use the platform, but before that I thought I should test whether or not there is a customer willing to pay for it.

  7. 1

    I like the idea, and I can imagine it being very useful. Have you connected with upper management teams to see if it would be useful for them?
    My concern would be getting people to be honest when they’re rating each other

    1. 1

      Only the ones in my direct network, @Cannonball2134

      We are actually counting on people being dishonest as we hypothesize this will create the exact kind of rating asymmetries our models will detect.

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        I agree with some of the other comments about it could be a problem if it is causing additional work. Is there a way you can incorporate it into existing systems so it's just a couple of clicks? The agile scrum environment is about learning and adapting quickly, maybe you could market your approach as an addon to improve sprints? Maybe even a scrum master could do the voting so that individuals don't have to? It might be another approach for you to test.

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          Sorry @Cannonball2134, I don't understand what the 'it' in your replied refers to

          1. 1

            Which it? The 1st it is your product, Pluckd. The last it, is checking if you could build your system into the agile framework: scrums and sprints.
            Hope that helps.

            1. 1

              Ah I see! :)

              Yeah, ideally it would be build as an API you could mount on Slack as an app. That way, more than just eliminating clicks, we would be able to get the data from where the work is actually done!

              We are trying to adhere to two-week sprints. However, it's challenging to act as the developer and the product manager at the same time, though. This means I have to stop building to talk to customers and shape idea and then stop talking to customers to build, otherwise I'll get my mental models mixed up.

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