We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd share this experience with all of you.
*Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the knowledge from our last Customer Development activities into a new set of experiments designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype in our market segment.
Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list of 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of about 20 and just started calling.
*Phone Anxiety *
I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing this several times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
*Conversation not Presentation*
We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich Collins we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions followed a simple outline:
1. Are you a customer?
We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do you spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we were talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a lively conversation. People love to talk about their (most important, overwhelming), problems.
2. Do we understand your problem?
For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting or we were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the natural flow of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do you currently use to help you with <problem description>?"
3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The trick here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are good enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell at this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our current feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any sales at all.
4. Bonus questions.
"Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you search for?"
"What is your job title?"
"Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
"Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking for>/month for Allicator?"
*Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I was the only person that had this problem). Our description of who was a potential customer was too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target people that would be possible customers at a high enough success rate to gather a meaningful set of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up and adjusted our hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data points. Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a carnival game is not enjoyable.
*Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute phone interview.
What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch Digger it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!", "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume of data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone apparently pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our ad. It's really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about you through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
*Finally *
After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
-- Start your interviews with whoever you know
-- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment not a sales call.
-- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
-- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
-- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
-- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll be telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our product out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development. As soon as possible we're going to get something out there and start charging for it.
I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm happy to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail), so please ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius, but I know that's not even close to true so I'm very, very open to feedback on this entire process.
> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought
> I'd share this experience with all of you.
> Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend
> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when
> I inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped
> the concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I
> rolled the knowledge from our last Customer Development activities
> into a new set of experiments designed to help us repeatably
> identify our customer archetype in our market segment.
> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first
> list of 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We
> didn't know where else to start, so we emailed our most connected
> friends, described Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want
> this?" We got a list of about 20 and just started calling.
> Phone Anxiety
> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone
> and avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of
> phone conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However,
> after doing this several times I've essentially eliminated this
> irrational fear.
> Conversation not Presentation
> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe
> our customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if
> anything was resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off
> your first conversation with a perfect stranger by stating their
> (hypothetical) problem takes awkward to a new level. Especially if
> they don't have this problem.
> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich
> Collins we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a
> guided conversation where we did more listening and less talking.
> Our questions followed a simple outline:
> 1. Are you a customer?
> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or
> "Do you spend much of your day coordinating the activities of
> others?" If we were talking with a 'customer' these questions were
> usually followed by a lively conversation. People love to talk about
> their (most important, overwhelming), problems.
> 2. Do we understand your problem?
> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without
> prompting or we were presented with opportunities to ask these
> questions in the natural flow of the conversation. One question we
> asked was, "What tools do you currently use to help you with
> <problem description>?"
> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The
> trick here is to describe the very smallest set of features you
> think are good enough to solve the core problem. There is a major
> temptation to sell at this point, so be disciplined. We were trying
> to learn whether our current feature roadmap to get to our MVP would
> be able to generate any sales at all.
> 4. Bonus questions.
> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you
> search for?"
> "What is your job title?"
> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable
> asking for>/month for Allicator?"
> Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?
> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some
> customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably
> locating people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I
> was worried I was the only person that had this problem). Our
> description of who was a potential customer was too broad. It was
> difficult to efficiently target people that would be possible
> customers at a high enough success rate to gather a meaningful set
> of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up and adjusted our
> hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data points.
> Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always
> a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like
> ducks in a carnival game is not enjoyable.
> Round 2: Ditch Diggers
> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the
> core problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles,
> (let's call them Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the
> job title at the top of the ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger?
> Feeling spread thin? Click here to complete a survey and tell us
> about it." Facebook ads were the easiest because we could pick types
> of people -- we have yet to create an effective adwords campaign. We
> offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute phone interview.
> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch
> Digger it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes,
> that's me exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for
> this, thank you!", "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want
> this!", "It's only (number that was so high we had to force each
> other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger
> volume of data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls.
> Someone apparently pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day
> after we ran our ad. It's really surprising to talk to someone and
> find out they heard about you through a newsletter the day after you
> run an ad. Now we have a way to repeatably find and talk to (and
> later market to) a decently large pool of people that have a high
> likelihood of being a potential customer.
> Finally
> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing
> landing pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally
> talking to customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment
> not a sales call.
> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your
> pricing questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on
> the right track
> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because
> they'll be telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry
> up and finish
> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some
> pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally
> get our product out the door. We have some catching up to do in
> product development. As soon as possible we're going to get
> something out there and start charging for it.
> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm
> happy to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail),
> so please ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius,
> but I know that's not even close to true so I'm very, very open to
> feedback on this entire process.
> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought
> I'd share this experience with all of you.
> Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend
> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when
> I inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped
> the concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I
> rolled the knowledge from our last Customer Development activities
> into a new set of experiments designed to help us repeatably
> identify our customer archetype in our market segment.
> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first
> list of 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We
> didn't know where else to start, so we emailed our most connected
> friends, described Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want
> this?" We got a list of about 20 and just started calling.
> Phone Anxiety
> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone
> and avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of
> phone conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However,
> after doing this several times I've essentially eliminated this
> irrational fear.
> Conversation not Presentation
> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe
> our customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if
> anything was resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off
> your first conversation with a perfect stranger by stating their
> (hypothetical) problem takes awkward to a new level. Especially if
> they don't have this problem.
> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich
> Collins we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a
> guided conversation where we did more listening and less talking.
> Our questions followed a simple outline:
> 1. Are you a customer?
> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or
> "Do you spend much of your day coordinating the activities of
> others?" If we were talking with a 'customer' these questions were
> usually followed by a lively conversation. People love to talk about
> their (most important, overwhelming), problems.
> 2. Do we understand your problem?
> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without
> prompting or we were presented with opportunities to ask these
> questions in the natural flow of the conversation. One question we
> asked was, "What tools do you currently use to help you with
> <problem description>?"
> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The
> trick here is to describe the very smallest set of features you
> think are good enough to solve the core problem. There is a major
> temptation to sell at this point, so be disciplined. We were trying
> to learn whether our current feature roadmap to get to our MVP would
> be able to generate any sales at all.
> 4. Bonus questions.
> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you
> search for?"
> "What is your job title?"
> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable
> asking for>/month for Allicator?"
> Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?
> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some
> customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably
> locating people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I
> was worried I was the only person that had this problem). Our
> description of who was a potential customer was too broad. It was
> difficult to efficiently target people that would be possible
> customers at a high enough success rate to gather a meaningful set
> of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up and adjusted our
> hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data points.
> Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always
> a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like
> ducks in a carnival game is not enjoyable.
> Round 2: Ditch Diggers
> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the
> core problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles,
> (let's call them Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the
> job title at the top of the ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger?
> Feeling spread thin? Click here to complete a survey and tell us
> about it." Facebook ads were the easiest because we could pick types
> of people -- we have yet to create an effective adwords campaign. We
> offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute phone interview.
> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch
> Digger it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes,
> that's me exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for
> this, thank you!", "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want
> this!", "It's only (number that was so high we had to force each
> other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger
> volume of data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls.
> Someone apparently pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day
> after we ran our ad. It's really surprising to talk to someone and
> find out they heard about you through a newsletter the day after you
> run an ad. Now we have a way to repeatably find and talk to (and
> later market to) a decently large pool of people that have a high
> likelihood of being a potential customer.
> Finally
> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing
> landing pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally
> talking to customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment
> not a sales call.
> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your
> pricing questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on
> the right track
> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because
> they'll be telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry
> up and finish
> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some
> pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally
> get our product out the door. We have some catching up to do in
> product development. As soon as possible we're going to get
> something out there and start charging for it.
> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm
> happy to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail),
> so please ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius,
> but I know that's not even close to true so I'm very, very open to
> feedback on this entire process.
I love the market segment epiphany. A segment is a group of people
who share the same problem, who would reference each other for a
solution AND who have access to each other in order to provide a
reference. Great work, Sean! : )
On Aug 11, 7:23 pm, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com> wrote:
> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd
> share this experience with all of you.
> *Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I inform
> them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the concepts of
> 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the knowledge from
> our last Customer Development activities into a new set of experiments
> designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype in our market
> segment.
> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list of
> 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know
> where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described
> Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of
> about 20 and just started calling.
> *Phone Anxiety *
> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and avoid
> it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone conversations
> I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing this several
> times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
> *Conversation not Presentation*
> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our
> customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was
> resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation
> with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes
> awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich Collins
> we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided
> conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions
> followed a simple outline:
> 1. Are you a customer?
> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do you
> spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we were
> talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a lively
> conversation. People love to talk about their (most important,
> overwhelming), problems.
> 2. Do we understand your problem?
> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting or we
> were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the natural flow
> of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do you currently
> use to help you with <problem description>?"
> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The trick
> here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are good
> enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell at
> this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our current
> feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any sales at
> all.
> 4. Bonus questions.
> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you search
> for?"
> "What is your job title?"
> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking
> for>/month for Allicator?"
> *Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some customers.
> Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating people that have
> the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I was the only person
> that had this problem). Our description of who was a potential customer was
> too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target people that would be
> possible customers at a high enough success rate to gather a meaningful set
> of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up and adjusted our
> hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data points. Throughout
> this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always a bit gut
> wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a carnival
> game is not enjoyable.
> *Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core
> problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them
> Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the
> ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
> complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest
> because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective
> adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute
> phone interview.
> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch Digger
> it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me
> exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!",
> "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number
> that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume of
> data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone apparently
> pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our ad. It's
> really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about you
> through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to
> repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of
> people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
> *Finally *
> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing pages
> and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to customers.
> Proof that we're not crazy.
> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment not a
> sales call.
> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing
> questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll be
> telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some pricing
> data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our product
> out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development. As soon
> as possible we're going to get something out there and start charging for
> it.
> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm happy
> to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail), so please
> ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius, but I know that's
> not even close to true so I'm very, very open to feedback on this entire
> process.
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com> wrote:
> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd
> share this experience with all of you.
> *Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I
> inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the
> concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the
> knowledge from our last Customer Development activities into a new set of
> experiments designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype
> in our market segment.
> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list of
> 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know
> where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described
> Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of
> about 20 and just started calling.
> *Phone Anxiety *
> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and
> avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone
> conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing
> this several times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
> *Conversation not Presentation*
> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our
> customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was
> resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation
> with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes
> awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich Collins
> we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided
> conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions
> followed a simple outline:
> 1. Are you a customer?
> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do you
> spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we were
> talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a lively
> conversation. People love to talk about their (most important,
> overwhelming), problems.
> 2. Do we understand your problem?
> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting or
> we were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the natural
> flow of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do you
> currently use to help you with <problem description>?"
> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The trick
> here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are good
> enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell at
> this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our current
> feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any sales at
> all.
> 4. Bonus questions.
> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you search
> for?"
> "What is your job title?"
> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking
> for>/month for Allicator?"
> *Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some
> customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating
> people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I
> was the only person that had this problem). Our description of who was a
> potential customer was too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target
> people that would be possible customers at a high enough success rate to
> gather a meaningful set of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up
> and adjusted our hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data
> points. Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always
> a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a
> carnival game is not enjoyable.
> *Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core
> problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them
> Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the
> ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
> complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest
> because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective
> adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute
> phone interview.
> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch Digger
> it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me
> exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!",
> "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number
> that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume of
> data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone apparently
> pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our ad. It's
> really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about you
> through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to
> repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of
> people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
> *Finally *
> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing pages
> and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to customers.
> Proof that we're not crazy.
> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment not a
> sales call.
> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing
> questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll be
> telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some pricing
> data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our product
> out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development. As soon
> as possible we're going to get something out there and start charging for
> it.
> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm happy
> to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail), so please
> ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius, but I know
> that's not even close to true so I'm very, very open to feedback on this
> entire process.
To date we've spent less than $1000 on our little experiments. This last
batch ran us approximately $500. Most of that cost was in the Amazon gift
cards.
> Could you please share with the community what would be the budget we
> should have in mind while trying a similar experience to yours?
> Thanks,
> Alexandre Gomes
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com> wrote:
>> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd
>> share this experience with all of you.
>> *Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
>> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I
>> inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the
>> concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the
>> knowledge from our last Customer Development activities into a new set of
>> experiments designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype
>> in our market segment.
>> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list of
>> 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know
>> where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described
>> Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of
>> about 20 and just started calling.
>> *Phone Anxiety *
>> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and
>> avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone
>> conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing
>> this several times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
>> *Conversation not Presentation*
>> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our
>> customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was
>> resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation
>> with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes
>> awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
>> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich
>> Collins we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided
>> conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions
>> followed a simple outline:
>> 1. Are you a customer?
>> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do you
>> spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we were
>> talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a lively
>> conversation. People love to talk about their (most important,
>> overwhelming), problems.
>> 2. Do we understand your problem?
>> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting or
>> we were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the natural
>> flow of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do you
>> currently use to help you with <problem description>?"
>> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
>> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The trick
>> here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are good
>> enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell at
>> this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our current
>> feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any sales at
>> all.
>> 4. Bonus questions.
>> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you
>> search for?"
>> "What is your job title?"
>> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
>> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking
>> for>/month for Allicator?"
>> *Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
>> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some
>> customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating
>> people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I
>> was the only person that had this problem). Our description of who was a
>> potential customer was too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target
>> people that would be possible customers at a high enough success rate to
>> gather a meaningful set of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up
>> and adjusted our hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data
>> points. Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always
>> a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a
>> carnival game is not enjoyable.
>> *Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
>> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core
>> problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them
>> Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the
>> ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
>> complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest
>> because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective
>> adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute
>> phone interview.
>> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch Digger
>> it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me
>> exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!",
>> "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number
>> that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
>> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume of
>> data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone apparently
>> pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our ad. It's
>> really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about you
>> through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to
>> repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of
>> people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
>> *Finally *
>> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing
>> pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to
>> customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
>> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
>> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
>> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment not a
>> sales call.
>> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
>> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing
>> questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
>> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
>> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll be
>> telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
>> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some
>> pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our
>> product out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development.
>> As soon as possible we're going to get something out there and start
>> charging for it.
>> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm happy
>> to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail), so please
>> ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius, but I know
>> that's not even close to true so I'm very, very open to feedback on this
>> entire process.
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com> wrote:
> To date we've spent less than $1000 on our little experiments. This last
> batch ran us approximately $500. Most of that cost was in the Amazon gift
> cards.
> We were inspired by Andrew Cheng. This post contains much more info.
> We tweaked the idea to fit our customers. For example, 1 hour interviews
> are impossible for our customers, they are just way too busy.
> - Sean
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Alexandre Gomes <alexandre.r...@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>> Hi Sean,
>> Congratulations for your results!
>> Could you please share with the community what would be the budget we
>> should have in mind while trying a similar experience to yours?
>> Thanks,
>> Alexandre Gomes
>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com>wrote:
>>> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd
>>> share this experience with all of you.
>>> *Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
>>> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I
>>> inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the
>>> concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the
>>> knowledge from our last Customer Development activities into a new set of
>>> experiments designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype
>>> in our market segment.
>>> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list
>>> of 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know
>>> where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described
>>> Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of
>>> about 20 and just started calling.
>>> *Phone Anxiety *
>>> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and
>>> avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone
>>> conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing
>>> this several times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
>>> *Conversation not Presentation*
>>> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our
>>> customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was
>>> resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation
>>> with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes
>>> awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
>>> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich
>>> Collins we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided
>>> conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions
>>> followed a simple outline:
>>> 1. Are you a customer?
>>> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do
>>> you spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we
>>> were talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a
>>> lively conversation. People love to talk about their (most important,
>>> overwhelming), problems.
>>> 2. Do we understand your problem?
>>> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting or
>>> we were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the natural
>>> flow of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do you
>>> currently use to help you with <problem description>?"
>>> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
>>> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The trick
>>> here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are good
>>> enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell at
>>> this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our current
>>> feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any sales at
>>> all.
>>> 4. Bonus questions.
>>> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you
>>> search for?"
>>> "What is your job title?"
>>> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
>>> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking
>>> for>/month for Allicator?"
>>> *Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
>>> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some
>>> customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating
>>> people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I
>>> was the only person that had this problem). Our description of who was a
>>> potential customer was too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target
>>> people that would be possible customers at a high enough success rate to
>>> gather a meaningful set of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up
>>> and adjusted our hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data
>>> points. Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always
>>> a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a
>>> carnival game is not enjoyable.
>>> *Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
>>> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core
>>> problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them
>>> Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the
>>> ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
>>> complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest
>>> because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective
>>> adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute
>>> phone interview.
>>> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch Digger
>>> it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me
>>> exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!",
>>> "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number
>>> that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
>>> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume
>>> of data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone
>>> apparently pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our
>>> ad. It's really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about
>>> you through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to
>>> repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of
>>> people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
>>> *Finally *
>>> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing
>>> pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to
>>> customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
>>> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
>>> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
>>> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment not
>>> a sales call.
>>> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
>>> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing
>>> questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
>>> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
>>> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll
>>> be telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
>>> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some
>>> pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our
>>> product out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development.
>>> As soon as possible we're going to get something out there and start
>>> charging for it.
>>> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm
>>> happy to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail), so
>>> please ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius, but I
>>> know that's not even close to true so I'm very, very open to feedback on
>>> this entire process.
Right now we're just excited to be able to pick up the phone and know that
it's very likely we'll be talking with someone that has the problem we're
trying to solve...
But we're forking over about $10/person for the interviews and our
conversion rate for the facebook ad, (click to survey), is about 50%. We're
paying about 50 cents per click. I wish I could get more of them on the
phone, those are really valuable conversations. The problem is they are all
insanely busy. Fortunately some of the more eager people we spoke with have
given us a list of conferences, professional organizations, etc. We may move
away from the Facebook ads for getting interviews in the future.
But yeah, the number of conversations is still quite small and we're still
making a lot of guesses.
- Sean
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Alexandre Gomes
<alexandre.r...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Thanks for sharing this information Sean.
> Could you tell us how many Ditch Diggers were you able to reach with that
> budget for the phone interview?
> Thanks,
> Alexandre Gomes
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com> wrote:
>> To date we've spent less than $1000 on our little experiments. This last
>> batch ran us approximately $500. Most of that cost was in the Amazon gift
>> cards.
>> We were inspired by Andrew Cheng. This post contains much more info.
>> We tweaked the idea to fit our customers. For example, 1 hour interviews
>> are impossible for our customers, they are just way too busy.
>> - Sean
>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Alexandre Gomes <
>> alexandre.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi Sean,
>>> Congratulations for your results!
>>> Could you please share with the community what would be the budget we
>>> should have in mind while trying a similar experience to yours?
>>> Thanks,
>>> Alexandre Gomes
>>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com>wrote:
>>>> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd
>>>> share this experience with all of you.
>>>> *Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
>>>> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I
>>>> inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the
>>>> concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the
>>>> knowledge from our last Customer Development activities into a new set of
>>>> experiments designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype
>>>> in our market segment.
>>>> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list
>>>> of 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know
>>>> where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described
>>>> Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of
>>>> about 20 and just started calling.
>>>> *Phone Anxiety *
>>>> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and
>>>> avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone
>>>> conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing
>>>> this several times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
>>>> *Conversation not Presentation*
>>>> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our
>>>> customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was
>>>> resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation
>>>> with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes
>>>> awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
>>>> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich
>>>> Collins we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided
>>>> conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions
>>>> followed a simple outline:
>>>> 1. Are you a customer?
>>>> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do
>>>> you spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we
>>>> were talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a
>>>> lively conversation. People love to talk about their (most important,
>>>> overwhelming), problems.
>>>> 2. Do we understand your problem?
>>>> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting
>>>> or we were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the
>>>> natural flow of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do
>>>> you currently use to help you with <problem description>?"
>>>> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
>>>> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The
>>>> trick here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are
>>>> good enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell
>>>> at this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our
>>>> current feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any
>>>> sales at all.
>>>> 4. Bonus questions.
>>>> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you
>>>> search for?"
>>>> "What is your job title?"
>>>> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
>>>> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking
>>>> for>/month for Allicator?"
>>>> *Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
>>>> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some
>>>> customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating
>>>> people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I
>>>> was the only person that had this problem). Our description of who was a
>>>> potential customer was too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target
>>>> people that would be possible customers at a high enough success rate to
>>>> gather a meaningful set of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up
>>>> and adjusted our hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data
>>>> points. Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always
>>>> a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a
>>>> carnival game is not enjoyable.
>>>> *Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
>>>> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core
>>>> problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them
>>>> Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the
>>>> ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
>>>> complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest
>>>> because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective
>>>> adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute
>>>> phone interview.
>>>> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch
>>>> Digger it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me
>>>> exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!",
>>>> "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number
>>>> that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
>>>> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume
>>>> of data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone
>>>> apparently pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our
>>>> ad. It's really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about
>>>> you through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to
>>>> repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of
>>>> people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
>>>> *Finally *
>>>> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing
>>>> pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to
>>>> customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
>>>> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
>>>> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
>>>> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment not
>>>> a sales call.
>>>> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
>>>> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing
>>>> questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
>>>> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
>>>> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll
>>>> be telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
>>>> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some
>>>> pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our
>>>> product out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development.
>>>> As soon as possible we're going to get something out there and start
>>>> charging for it.
>>>> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm
>>>> happy to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail), so
>>>> please ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius, but I
>>>> know that's not even close to true so I'm very, very open to feedback on
>>>> this entire process.
On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com> wrote:
> Um....not enough! :-)
> Right now we're just excited to be able to pick up the phone and know that
> it's very likely we'll be talking with someone that has the problem we're
> trying to solve...
> But we're forking over about $10/person for the interviews and our
> conversion rate for the facebook ad, (click to survey), is about 50%. We're
> paying about 50 cents per click. I wish I could get more of them on the
> phone, those are really valuable conversations. The problem is they are all
> insanely busy. Fortunately some of the more eager people we spoke with have
> given us a list of conferences, professional organizations, etc. We may move
> away from the Facebook ads for getting interviews in the future.
> But yeah, the number of conversations is still quite small and we're still
> making a lot of guesses.
> - Sean
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Alexandre Gomes <alexandre.r...@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>> Thanks for sharing this information Sean.
>> Could you tell us how many Ditch Diggers were you able to reach with that
>> budget for the phone interview?
>> Thanks,
>> Alexandre Gomes
>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com>wrote:
>>> To date we've spent less than $1000 on our little experiments. This last
>>> batch ran us approximately $500. Most of that cost was in the Amazon gift
>>> cards.
>>> We were inspired by Andrew Cheng. This post contains much more info.
>>> We tweaked the idea to fit our customers. For example, 1 hour interviews
>>> are impossible for our customers, they are just way too busy.
>>> - Sean
>>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Alexandre Gomes <
>>> alexandre.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi Sean,
>>>> Congratulations for your results!
>>>> Could you please share with the community what would be the budget we
>>>> should have in mind while trying a similar experience to yours?
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Alexandre Gomes
>>>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Sean Fioritto <s...@allicator.com>wrote:
>>>>> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd
>>>>> share this experience with all of you.
>>>>> *Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
>>>>> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I
>>>>> inform them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the
>>>>> concepts of 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the
>>>>> knowledge from our last Customer Development activities into a new set of
>>>>> experiments designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype
>>>>> in our market segment.
>>>>> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list
>>>>> of 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know
>>>>> where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described
>>>>> Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of
>>>>> about 20 and just started calling.
>>>>> *Phone Anxiety *
>>>>> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and
>>>>> avoid it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone
>>>>> conversations I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing
>>>>> this several times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
>>>>> *Conversation not Presentation*
>>>>> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our
>>>>> customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was
>>>>> resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation
>>>>> with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes
>>>>> awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
>>>>> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich
>>>>> Collins we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided
>>>>> conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions
>>>>> followed a simple outline:
>>>>> 1. Are you a customer?
>>>>> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do
>>>>> you spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we
>>>>> were talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a
>>>>> lively conversation. People love to talk about their (most important,
>>>>> overwhelming), problems.
>>>>> 2. Do we understand your problem?
>>>>> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting
>>>>> or we were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the
>>>>> natural flow of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do
>>>>> you currently use to help you with <problem description>?"
>>>>> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
>>>>> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The
>>>>> trick here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are
>>>>> good enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell
>>>>> at this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our
>>>>> current feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any
>>>>> sales at all.
>>>>> 4. Bonus questions.
>>>>> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you
>>>>> search for?"
>>>>> "What is your job title?"
>>>>> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
>>>>> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking
>>>>> for>/month for Allicator?"
>>>>> *Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
>>>>> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some
>>>>> customers. Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating
>>>>> people that have the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I
>>>>> was the only person that had this problem). Our description of who was a
>>>>> potential customer was too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target
>>>>> people that would be possible customers at a high enough success rate to
>>>>> gather a meaningful set of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up
>>>>> and adjusted our hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data
>>>>> points. Throughout this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always
>>>>> a bit gut wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a
>>>>> carnival game is not enjoyable.
>>>>> *Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
>>>>> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core
>>>>> problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them
>>>>> Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the
>>>>> ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
>>>>> complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest
>>>>> because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective
>>>>> adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute
>>>>> phone interview.
>>>>> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch
>>>>> Digger it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me
>>>>> exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!",
>>>>> "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number
>>>>> that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
>>>>> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume
>>>>> of data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone
>>>>> apparently pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our
>>>>> ad. It's really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about
>>>>> you through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to
>>>>> repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of
>>>>> people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
>>>>> *Finally *
>>>>> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing
>>>>> pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to
>>>>> customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
>>>>> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
>>>>> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
>>>>> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment
>>>>> not a sales call.
>>>>> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
>>>>> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing
>>>>> questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
>>>>> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
>>>>> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll
>>>>> be telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
>>>>> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some
>>>>> pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our
>>>>> product out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development.
>>>>> As soon as possible we're going to get something out there and start
>>>>> charging for it.
Great write-up, candid and very useful. I have inserted some comments and suggestions after some of your remarks but it's a much appreciated narrative of a customer development process.
At 07:23 PM 8/11/2009, Sean Fioritto wrote:
>We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought >I'd share this experience with all of you.
>Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend
>Everywhere I look I see customers.
You are probably correct,it's just that your application only brings sufficient value to compel change from their current approach for a few.
>Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first >list of 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We >didn't know where else to start, so we emailed our most connected >friends, described Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want >this?" We got a list of about 20 and just started calling.
This is a great start and because these were friends of a friend they are more likely to tell you what's wrong or what's missing, the average stranger who is unenthusiastic may instead appear lukewarm "that's nice" to minimize the length of the interview.
>Conversation not Presentation
>1. Are you a customer?
>We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or >"Do you spend much of your day coordinating the activities of >others?" If we were talking with a 'customer' these questions were >usually followed by a lively conversation. People love to talk about >their (most important, overwhelming), problems.
I think it's most useful to ask questions that are truly qualifying and have yes, no, or a numeric answer. For example the question "Do you want to save money on your car insurance" is worthless because the only real answer is yes. If you question fails the Microsoft Error Message Test (the phrase ", you moron" can be appended to the end of it without changing it's meaning) then it's a poor question. Ideally a question would elicit symptoms from someone in agony (a lot of pain) with a condition that you can ameliorate, improve, or fix. Some examples for Allicator (your mileage may vary): * Is the nature of your work such that you work to a "to do" list or action item checklist? * How many action items do you check off in an average workday? An average work week? * How many people do you need to "touch base with" on a common project in an average work week? * Do you have to manage a shared list of action items with more than 3 people? (3 might be a breakpoint you uncover from earlier interviews, it might also be 5,10,... * Are you managing a set of more than a dozen action items due this week? (this might be derived as a breakpoint from earlier interviews) At a higher level it would seem that the more action items that need to be cross-checked with more people the higher the pain or need for your offering. Above some threshold of group size (3,5,6,...) making the completion list visible to everyone would enable "peer pressure" instead of one person having to follow up. Perhaps above a higher threshold (12,24,50) this would breakdown.
>2. Do we understand your problem?
>For us this set of questions was frequently answered without >prompting or we were presented with opportunities to ask these >questions in the natural flow of the conversation. One question we >asked was, "What tools do you currently use to help you with ><problem description>?"
Some other questions that I also find useful in this regard: * How are you solving the problem now. * How well is that working for you. * What's good about that solution that a new solution should also offer * What's missing that would encourage you to try something new if it was also included. It's as important to understand their perception of the tool or methodology as the tool itself. Many people may use Microsoft Excel, but in different ways, to solve this problem. I think it's also important to distinguish between ad hoc (e.g. pencil and paper, E-mail, Microsoft Office tools) that are not purpose built to address the problem but are being deployed against it because they are handy, and more customized solutions.
>3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
>This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The >trick here is to describe the very smallest set of features you >think are good enough to solve the core problem. There is a major >temptation to sell at this point, so be disciplined. We were trying >to learn whether our current feature roadmap to get to our MVP would >be able to generate any sales at all.
I think it's more in the nature of "if you could do x" on top of your status quo, or "X and Y" would you be interested in trying something. Or can we get an example of your current problem representation that we can map into our solution and have you take a look at it.
>4. Bonus questions.
>"Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you >search for?"
What else have you tried and abandoned?
>"What is your job title?"
>"Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
Who else do you know who has this challenge/issue/problem (especially quoting dimensional aspects: e.g. number of checklist items, team size, ...)
>"Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable >asking for>/month for Allicator?"
How much is this costing you now: time, errors (quality), material cost, money, headcount
individual contributors will tend to think in terms of time savings and error reduction managers will tend to answer in terms of headcount exec/business owners will tend to answer in terms of money - cost, savings, revenue, profit
>Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?
>It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some customers.
Technically these are prospective customers or prospects, being old-fashioned I like to reserve the word customer for people who have actually paid for the product or service.
>Round 2: Ditch Diggers
>The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the >core problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, >(let's call them Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the >job title at the top of the ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? >Feeling spread thin? Click here to complete a survey and tell us >about it." Facebook ads were the easiest because we could pick types >of people -- we have yet to create an effective adwords campaign. We >offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute phone interview.
I would think that there would be specialty media, websites, newsletters etc.. that target ditch diggers that might be less of a shotgun blast than a Facebook ad. You should certainly ask the ditch diggers that you uncover what websites, magazines, newsletters, blogs, etc... they regularly read for information on their profession/occupation....Your mileage may vary.
>What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch >Digger it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, >that's me exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for >this, thank you!", "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want >this!", "It's only (number that was so high we had to force each >other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
>We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger >volume of data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. >Someone apparently pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day >after we ran our ad. It's really surprising to talk to someone and >find out they heard about you through a newsletter the day after you >run an ad. Now we have a way to repeatably find and talk to (and >later market to) a decently large pool of people that have a high >likelihood of being a potential customer.
>Finally
>After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing >landing pages and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally >talking to customers. Proof that we're not crazy.
>Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
>-- Start your interviews with whoever you know
You should also enlist their support to get referred to folks who fit a target profile for a prospect (one that you may refine as you go). Don't share this initial profile with everyone you know (since it's likely to be incorrect or deficient) but do a rolling set of requests. Also remember that if someone you know refers you to someone you don't, you should close the loop to tell them how you thought it went and ask what the FoaF's impression was, they may be more candid with the person in the middle than with you and it's all good data to help refine your approach.
>-- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment >not a sales call.
The challenge here is to avoid going into "objection handling" mode and stay in an "appreciative inquiry" frame of mind. There is a temptation to act as if "I am from the future and things work better there. I only hope I can get you to abandon your ignorance and embrace what's coming." If you find yourself wishing for "smarter prospects" remember that means that your presentation is inadequate.
>-- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
This can't be said often enough. I think as software engineers we are used to being in complete control of a program or a computer, and the improv and unpredictability of a conversation can be difficult to accept. But it's the only way to really learn something in the early going.
>Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some >pricing data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally >get our product out the door. We have some catching up to do in >product development. As soon as possible we're going to get >something out there and start charging for it.
> We just completed a few rounds of customer interviews and I thought I'd
> share this experience with all of you.
> *Round 1: A Friend of a Friend of a Friend *
> Everywhere I look I see customers. Sadly most disagree with me when I inform
> them of this fact. It wasn't until recently that I grasped the concepts of
> 'earlyvangelists' and market segmentation. So I rolled the knowledge from
> our last Customer Development activities into a new set of experiments
> designed to help us repeatably identify our customer archetype in our market
> segment.
> Our first experiment was a round of customer interviews. Our first list of
> 'customers' to interview were mostly friends of friends. We didn't know
> where else to start, so we emailed our most connected friends, described
> Allicator and asked, "know anyone who might want this?" We got a list of
> about 20 and just started calling.
> *Phone Anxiety *
> I have phone anxiety. I loathe talking with strangers on the phone and avoid
> it at all cost. To those of you that share my hatred of phone conversations
> I'm sorry to say there is no quick fix. However, after doing this several
> times I've essentially eliminated this irrational fear.
> *Conversation not Presentation*
> We started with our Problem Presentation. The idea was to describe our
> customer hypotheses and then at various points pause to see if anything was
> resonating. This was not our best idea. Starting off your first conversation
> with a perfect stranger by stating their (hypothetical) problem takes
> awkward to a new level. Especially if they don't have this problem.
> Thanks to a suggestion from the Lean Startup Circle's very own Rich Collins
> we switched gears and started asking questions. Now we had a guided
> conversation where we did more listening and less talking. Our questions
> followed a simple outline:
> 1. Are you a customer?
> We asked questions like, "How busy are you on a scale of 1-10?" or "Do you
> spend much of your day coordinating the activities of others?" If we were
> talking with a 'customer' these questions were usually followed by a lively
> conversation. People love to talk about their (most important,
> overwhelming), problems.
> 2. Do we understand your problem?
> For us this set of questions was frequently answered without prompting or we
> were presented with opportunities to ask these questions in the natural flow
> of the conversation. One question we asked was, "What tools do you currently
> use to help you with <problem description>?"
> 3. Does Allicator solve your problem?
> This part of the conversation was the most like a presentation. The trick
> here is to describe the very smallest set of features you think are good
> enough to solve the core problem. There is a major temptation to sell at
> this point, so be disciplined. We were trying to learn whether our current
> feature roadmap to get to our MVP would be able to generate any sales at
> all.
> 4. Bonus questions.
> "Have you ever looked for a tool to solve this problem? What did you search
> for?"
> "What is your job title?"
> "Do you know anyone else that would be interested in Allicator?"
> "Would you pay <a number high enough that we are uncomfortable asking
> for>/month for Allicator?"
> *Hey wait, was that a customer or my shadow?*
> It took dozens of phone calls before we managed to talk with some customers.
> Our problem from the beginning has been repeatably locating people that have
> the problem we are solving. (For a while I was worried I was the only person
> that had this problem). Our description of who was a potential customer was
> too broad. It was difficult to efficiently target people that would be
> possible customers at a high enough success rate to gather a meaningful set
> of data. After we ran out of leads, we circled up and adjusted our
> hypotheses. This was tough with only a few positive data points. Throughout
> this process we have pivoted many times, and it's always a bit gut
> wrenching. Setting up your dreams to be shot down like ducks in a carnival
> game is not enjoyable.
> *Round 2: Ditch Diggers*
> The few customers we talked to had little in common except for the core
> problem we were solving. Two had very similar job titles, (let's call them
> Ditch Diggers), so we ran a facebook ad with the job title at the top of the
> ad, which was roughly, "Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to
> complete a survey and tell us about it." Facebook ads were the easiest
> because we could pick types of people -- we have yet to create an effective
> adwords campaign. We offered $10 Amazon gift cards to complete a 15 minute
> phone interview.
> What followed next was absolutely amazing. When we talk to a Ditch Digger
> it's like every response has an exclamation point. "Yes, that's me
> exactly!", "I can't believe you're building a tool for this, thank you!",
> "Here are 5 emails of other people that will want this!", "It's only (number
> that was so high we had to force each other to ask)/month? Great deal!"
> We've since switched to a simple web survey just to get a larger volume of
> data and so far it looks consistent with our phone calls. Someone apparently
> pasted a link in a Ditch Digger newsletter a day after we ran our ad. It's
> really surprising to talk to someone and find out they heard about you
> through a newsletter the day after you run an ad. Now we have a way to
> repeatably find and talk to (and later market to) a decently large pool of
> people that have a high likelihood of being a potential customer.
> *Finally *
> After all our struggles with adwords campaigns, split testing landing pages
> and the dozens of awkward phone calls we're finally talking to customers.
> Proof that we're not crazy.
> Here is a quick rundown of the tactics we used and a few tips:
> -- Start your interviews with whoever you know
> -- Keep your questions true to your hypotheses -- it's an experiment not a
> sales call.
> -- Have a conversation, don't give a presentation
> -- If the description of your minimum viable product and your pricing
> questions are making you uncomfortable, you're probably on the right track
> -- Find someone who's job description matches your problem
> -- You'll know when you're talking to an earlyvangelist because they'll be
> telling you who to talk to next and pushing you to hurry up and finish
> Next step for us is to run some ads on LinkedIn and split test some pricing
> data -- we'll also be collecting emails for when we finally get our product
> out the door. We have some catching up to do in product development. As soon
> as possible we're going to get something out there and start charging for
> it.
> I plan to share as much as I can with this group whenever I can. I'm happy
> to give more detail, (maybe off list depending on the detail), so please
> ask. We've just had some success so I feel like a genius, but I know that's
> not even close to true so I'm very, very open to feedback on this entire
> process.
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