MVP step 1: The sniff test
Here’s an article of me following the sniff test for my idea to give bloggers a way to convert their articles into podcast episodes… that’s the idea anyway. I still don’t know if anyone will buy this. But here’s my sniff test and everything I did for checkpoint 1.
[edit: 3/1/2017] — turns out that bloggers don’t really want to convert their articles to a TTS podcast, so even though my idea can be used for this purpose, this is not a good use case to advertise. I’m not sure whether to pivot to another business customer type or sell to consumers…
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FYI, I’m following the lean startup process of building an MVP (Min viable product) as explained in Evan Kimbrell’s course (which you might still be able to get for free if he left the coupon valid — Google for 25 days of ideas, click on 25):
Sniff test
Pain to Payment : how big of a problem is it?
It’s a nice to have, chances are the blogger wants traffic to their blog more than anything. A podcast is probably an afterthought… though they can use this as a lead magnet… so I’m leaning to a 5.
Matching fit : is this something I’d be willing to work on?
Yes, 9
Sustainability : how sustainable is it in the long term? what would it look like if your product is successful?
3 — I think other people will just copy it because this idea of reading articles out loud has already been implemented — Google for Narro, Umano, Play.ht… but you never know!
Path to validation : how easy is it to validate?
It should be pretty easy. I’ll promote and try to sell first before building. So… 8
Unfair advantage : what advantage do you have against a competitor coming in?
I will be in touch with the customers, but I don’t have a big network. However I kind of “know” some bloggers. So I’ll give myself a 4, why not?
Hypothesis
I believe that bloggers will want to turn their articles into a podcast
because they will want to use it as a lead magnet and they are too busy to make a podcast
Risky assumptions
Readers would rather listen to audio than read because it’s easier to multitask
Bloggers will want a podcast lead magnet
Bloggers will pay money for the solution
There’s nothing else out there that does this.
Min criteria for success
This was just copied off the slide:
Lifetime value > cost per acquisition
Target Market
At first I was going to target general users, but then that’s too general… So I’m going to be targeting bloggers who have mostly articles and are kind of thinking about or have started a podcast. As to what type of bloggers, I still need to figure out… Which type of blogger is more willing to pay? I need to do some customer interviews to find out!
The Avatar I’m catering to is called Lindsay— she’s somewhat of a risk-averse introvert like me who just wants to test things out before diving in to do a ‘real’ podcast. She’s bought a few online tools already to help her with her blog (i.e. is not brand new to the blogging world) and isn’t worried about spending the market value of whatever a podcast hosting solution costs.
So yeah, let’s start with that!
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Now it’s time for me to do some competitive analysis…
Now if you have 2 minutes, leave a comment below with what goes on in your mind when you ask yourself “How do I figure out if this will work?”.
If you only have 2 seconds, please ❤ the article!
