Designer Founders’ Problems Pt.3
Suddenly it’s 2019 (the journey has been 3 years). And I just found this sitting in my Drafts from 2017 so publishing it.
If you’ve been keeping up with my Designer Founders’ Problems stories (Part 1 & Part 2), THANK YOU it’s definitely been a long time coming. I’d love to buy you a drink in Seattle to make up for the 10min loss of your life (seriously, just give me a shout).
Without further adue, 2016 I finally quit my job to build the startup, for reals this time. But first, I started abiem.design and worked with various local startups in Seattle like of Zillow, CoBuy, AskMinka, Brenthaven, Timer…etc.
Then January 2017 year i joined the Founder Institute’s program with the Seattle cohort and met a lot of awesomely great people! All the while also:
- trying to wind down client work (and still getting referrals, which I kindly reject most of the time)
- kept looking for technical co-founder or interested-developer (I didn’t want to just pay a dev for an ‘mvp’ and call it a day. I knew this would be an on-going process with gazillion iterations until we get it right)
- Figuring out the best way & right approach to build the MVP to test my assumptions
- learning about everything and anything as I go along
So let’s break things down 1 at a time:
MVP & LEARNINGS | TODAY & HOW THINGS CHANGED | NEXT STEPS
The original idea I wanted to build was a product/service that would connect people serendipitously with a reason—but in a non-dating / or seeking-professional kind of way. If you’re interested in why people need to connect serendipitously & need help doing so, you can read about more it here, here, and here.
The MVP was to build an app that would find you a nearby lunch buddy instantly for certain cusines you may both be looking to have in the moment. You’d get matched based on what food you want, and off you go. No sign ups and no profiles, because I believe you can learn more about them once you meet. And the point is the food!
After rigorous searching for the right developer, and constantly ‘dumbing’ down the idea of what I really need to ‘build’ I eventually learnt and realized that:
- Completely random will not work, people need at least a ‘common denominator’ to feel comfortable enough to meet with a stranger. Be it same campus, company, ethnic, interest, gender…what not.
- The WeWork co-working space is perfect as a ‘test bed’ since it provides the proximity and commonality needed
- I don’t need an app. I got members signed up with just their phone #s and I personally text them everyday @ 11AM to see if they’re up for lunch that day. This way I was still able to achieve:
- A) Being local (all WeWork members)
- B) In-the-moment, right now (they have until 11:30AM to respond for lunch)
- C) Reduce the friction of adoption (no apps to download)
- D) List of 50 phone #s
LEARNINGS:
- Your idea(MVP) can always be simpler, more focused, and more dumbed-down than you originally think. Even if you’ve dumbed it down 3 times already. I personally achieved this by talking to more people, getting feedback, then really thinking hard about what I have at hand. NOT by brainstorming endlessly with me and myself in a dark room.
- Spend 5x more time on figuring out how you can validate your idea without building anything compared to actually thinking about the idea itself and how great it is/can be.
- I thought I was pro at the above points already with my startup experiences, being a designer, and having worked on 20+ v1 products through the years. But I was wrong. When you really have zero resources and just yourself, the playing field is totally different.
- Lastly, this should be obvious, but it still hurts to experience the truth: People will NOT sign up for any event/app/activity just because you stuck posters all around the office.
Sign ups from posters: ZERO.
Sign ups from me talking to people in-person: 85% success rate.
Sign ups in-person WITH a bottle of whiskey: 95% success rate.
MVP & LEARNINGS | TODAY & HOW THINGS CHANGED | NEXT STEPS
As of today, the core product of the startup is to provide a way for people to ‘broadcast’ a small help they need in-person to people around them. For example, need an iPhone charger in the coffee shop? Need a hand moving a table? Lost a blue hat in the park? These are problems that you need help in-person, but things like Slack, Snapchat, and Facebook won’t be able to help.
With the Founder Institute’s program I’ve also had plenty of opportunities to pitch my core product above and the “MVP” lunch-roulette. The feedback from mentors were extremely polarizing from:
“This is too simple, it’s not even a product.” (referring to lunch-roulette)
and
“Interesting…but I don’t think you’re ready to pitch yet.” (referring to lunch-roulette, which I don’t have a clear business model for)
to
“I like your vision, but why don’t you just do the lunch-roulette? It’s super interesting and easy to understand and really cool!” (when I pitched the core product for my startup and lunch-roulette as the MVP)
LEARNINGS:
- Pitch to 20 different mentors and you’ll get 20 different responses. Don’t let the feedbacks bog you down, but really really sit on and think through it all:
How much merit do the mentor feedbacks have? (are they potential customers, are their experiences relevant?)
Why did they have that reaction/comment? (is it your delivery, missing pieces in your idea, did they just have a bad day, what parts did they actually like and why?)
How passionate are you about the idea? (Are you starting to doubt yourself after 3 feedbacks?)
How can you make things better? (better story, more/less details, what parts of the idea has to go?) - I think I did an awesome job narrowing down to my “MVP”, but is it too different from the original vision? Is it really about people meeting people, or the food, or discovery, or something else? I felt like i created a trap for myself, saw it, and still jumped into it
- Signing up and saying “That’s an awesome idea! I’ll definitely go to lunches!” really means <20% of the people will actually do it. Even if you remind them.
MVP & LEARNINGS | TODAY & HOW THINGS CHANGED | NEXT STEPS
So where am I now? I finally met an awesome developer @ StartupWeekend and we’ve been working together in building the app. When I pitched @ StartupWeekend I used the name Mayo (instead of the originally intended 2Gather) because it’s short, memorable, and makes people go wtf why mayo? Turns out, one of the judges said the only name they remember from that weekend was Mayo 😂. So we may very well just release the app with its codename.
We’re getting ready launch the beta at Westlake WeWork because Mayo isn’t very useful if there isn’t enough density in a particular areas. How it works is simple:
- Post the help you need (expires in 1 hour, or if you move out of the area)
- Other people within vicinity can respond to you if they can help
- Get thanked/rewarded if you helped someone out
- Focused on micro-interactions, in the moment, and quick in-person helps rather than long ones. i.e Get a 2nd eye on a poster you designed for 5 min, not professional consulting for 5 hours
We will be signing up the entire office here (or try to) and gather feedback to iterate on. If you’re interested in checking out the beta and helping us with feedback that’d actually be AWESOME. Just let us know here.
Although it’d probably be best if you can grab at least 5 other friends or coworkers to try it together.
If you’re interested in just staying up to date with Mayo updates then just follow me on Medium or sign up for the email updates here (updates every 2 to 3 weeks).
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