MicMentor

The research ended in early March. I have learned many things that help me shape MicMentor.

First, it's about motivation.

I sent 12 practice exercises to my participants. Half of them stop doing exercises in week 1. Half of them keep doing exercises for the whole month.

It is interesting to see such separation. It confirms what I have heard: for apps such as language learning, weight-losing, or habit building, you can only attract determined people. The rest of the people start their new year revolution, and then they give up quickly because they are not motivated.

The app's job is not to offer the best exercises or lessons but to keep people motivated. Serval topics I have been looking into to incorporate into the product.

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): helping users change their mindset, which changes their behavior, then the outcome of their behavior can give them positive enforcement to help them continue to change their mindset.
• Gamification: making the experience fun

Secondly, it's about being creative. Always try to turn bad outcomes into something valuable.

As you can see in the earlier update, I was disappointed because I found half of my users dropped the research program in week 1.

I decided to build an unsubscribe form, but I did not get much feedback on why people stopped doing the exercises. Most people's response is, "I am busy."

Then, I started being creative with my exercise questions to get more value from the exercises. For example, in one exercise, I asked participants: "You sign up for this program to improve your speaking skills. Imagine yourself already having such a superpower: You are a great and fluent speaker. What are you going to do with your superpower?"

This question is crucial for my value proposition. Most people try to solve the problem on the surface level. For example, some people want to lose weight, and it is not enough to sell them weight loss programs. To make sure they are getting what they want, I need to understand "why" they want to lose weight and what they want to achieve? In this case, what they want might be becoming more confident or attractive by losing weight. Knowing they want to be more confident and attractive, my value props can be about being more confident and attractive, not about the number of lbs they will lose.

Similarly, with MicMentor, people want to become more confident when they speak, they want to ask for that promotion they are afraid to ask, or they want to make more friends with fluent speaking skills. That's interesting. A lot of these have nothing to do with speaking skills. (thinking emoji)

Then, I started to iterate on the format of the exercise. For example, I use a quote from Steve jobs "Most people never ask, and that's what separates, sometimes, the people who do things from the people who just dream about them." In the exercise, we practice how to ask for help or ask for a promotion.

This exercise is inspired by people who say they are afraid to ask for a promotion because of their language skills. The key is not about how they ask for help, but just by practicing the asks. I believe it's valuable, and they can use what they have practiced whenever they need to in real-life.

Then, I did a little more by putting together a guided exercise to help them construct their thoughts. By iterating different exercise styles, I slowly found what works for everyone. People like the guided exercises and practical content they can use in real-life.

What's next? I have put together a product brief with three milestones to address everything I learned from the research. I will work on those milestones in the next couple of months.

In the first week of research, I immediately learned that my approach was not working for our participants. The number of participants drops as days go by, and I don't get feedback from them. I knew something was not right, so I changed my approach. It is good that I am building it without code, so I can make change to the product quickly. However, I have already lost many participants who are willing to test it for me. Now what?

"My product" relies on emails, and I send many emails to participants. I decided to use it to try again. I added an "unsubscribe" feature in my next email. When they want to "unsubscribe", they go through a form to give feedback. In addition, I re-emphasized that I want the product to work for them, and it is entirely free during the research. The product costs $60/week - I have to pay for the service they receive during the research. I highlight that they are missing out on the opportunities to use this free service if they decide to cancel. If they are still interested in taking advantage of the product, they can schedule a call with me to see how they can get the most out of the product.

I am not sure if this will work. People can simply ignore and delete the email. In the last couple of days, I keep thinking I should give up on people who decide to leave - I know I don't have the solution that is working, but I know I am solving a problem they want to solve. After thinking through this, I decided to break my old habit of "taking no for an answer" by trying not to take "no" for an answer.

What'll happen? I don't know, but I am excited to find out!

Realization

Over the last couple of years, I have spent time building an app and hoping for the best. In the middle of coding this app, I realized that I always launch MVP quickly, which is great, but I rarely spent enough time talking to the users. I have all the tracking setup for the app, but I rarely got enough data to analyze, then I assume the idea is not valid and move on to something else.

Sounds like a common mistake that a founder made? Definitely. I saw some people succeed without validating their ideas - and maybe it gives me the wrong impression that I can be as lucky as them. I am not lucky or smart - so I decided to change my approach.

Changing my Matric

After I realized this, I quickly finished the app, and I did very little work on advertising my app, but I spent much more time getting attention from my target audience. My matric is no longer about how many downloads. It is how many people I can reach. I interviewed people who were interested in the app ideas. I learned a lot about what they feel about speaking up in their non-native workplace - I am not alone. Many people who work at a non-native speaking company do not have the environment to improve their non-native language outside of their workplace. For example, their spouse and family speak their native language. Or they worked at an English-speaking company from South America.

The Research Program

I designed a new feature without any code and started reaching out to people to join the research program. There are not a lot of people sign up for the research program, but it's enough for me to start learning. These people are highly motivated individuals. They're willing to go through a terrible experience - complete a survey, sign an NDA, and schedule a time to meet with me.

The program started last Sunday, and I am very excited about what I will learn during this process!