Survey first or MVP?
What are some of your thoughts on putting out a survey before creating an MVP to get a feel for the general interest in your product?
Only thing I can see being a problem is not getting enough people to participate in it to get a good data set.
It's better to use all the channels possible to begin with. Surveys are quicker, phone conversations are a little longer and impactful, meeting in person is really long but very helpful.
Customer surveys should take place much earlier than MVPs. Much much earlier. You need to thoroughly conduct a market research before progressing further with your product idea. Then you better launch a presell offer to see if there's enough market need for the product you'd like to develop. Only if you achieve an adequate number of preorders, you should take up developing an MVP.
☞ https://blog.keyzy.io/5-steps-to-a-software-pre-sale/
I worry about taking pre-orders for a product that would take me 6 months or a year to build, working part time. Do you have a solution for that?
Being completely transparent at the end of your pre-sale offer. Be honest with your prospective customers that you will need some time to actualize the project. They know it's a presale and they get discounts for it. You can refund to them anyway.
Still, your audience doesn't need to know how much time you precisely need for finalizing your product "during" the pre-sale. You can launch a pre-sale offer just for the purpose of validating your idea. If it arouses enough attention, then you know you're on the right track. If not, then you reconsider your product idea or marketing strategy. Hope this helps.
Thanks for the knowledge!
Why not do both? Try using a survey and to guide Your development efforts. If you’re developing this product to service your own need then just start on the MVP now and as you get more feedback you’ll be able to make tweaks on the fly.
Thanks for the feedback! That's what I was thinking of doing just wanted to see what the community was thinking. Thanks again
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
I have actually. So I have been talking with a few people from my linkedIn network and the response has been mixed but I do agree with you that the data is very good from an actual conversation.