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Last night I had the first meeting with my first users. Here's a bit of how I did it and what I got from it.

I made a post yesterday where I talk about my first 6 months as an Indie Hacker and what I've learned so far.

In the post I mentioned that I was going to have a meeting with some friends who will be beta testing one of my apps.

It was my first meeting ever with possible users, and the first time I've shown a project to someone who's not family or my girlfriend.

I'd already been working on another project before COVID that really wasn't intended for a niche I know well and I also didn't have the chance to validate at an early stage. This one on the other hand is intended for guitarists. I'm a guitarist, and the friends I called are guitarists as well so I was confident that they would understand what I was gonna show them.

I was able to validate my ideas at an early stage and their feedback wasn't really that far from what I was expecting.

It really gives me a boost in motivation that I'm sure will help me work on this faster and better.

As I mentioned, this was my first meeting ever of this kind. I really didn't do any research prior to it to know how to approach it or what to say.

An hour before the meeting I grabbed a pen and a paper and wrote a quick and simple agenda. This is a transcription of what I had on the paper:

  • Thank them for their time and collaboration and tell them how important it is to me to have them in the meeting. I'll try not to take much of their time.
  • Explain the reason behind the app, and what motivated me to start working on it.
  • Explain to them that what they're gonna see is an early version, that there's still work to do.
  • Ask them if they want to try this early version of the app. It's OK if they don't want to or if they can't do it.
  • Show them the app and tell them that any feedback is welcome even if it's negative or "controversial". Tell them they won't hurt my feelings if that's the case.
  • Explain to them the features that are still missing in this version.
  • Explain to them why I have to charge for this app.
  • Q&A and brainstorming section. Here not only they asked questions but I also asked them some of the most important ones for me: ¿Would you use the app? ¿How and why would you use it? ¿How much would you pay for the app?

All this took roughly 45 mins, which is OK given all the information provided and discussed.

Sincerely, it was great! Everything went smoothly. They identified with the problem, understood the solution, and some of their ideas matched with things I'd already thought about.

They want to try the beta and I'll send them the installers next week.

I would say 1 to 2 months I may be able to share this with other people and with this community. But I've learned that delays are pretty common so I wouldn't provide a specific date.

Follow me on Twitter where I'll keep posting about this journey.

Thanks for reading!

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