Boodopt Startup Diary #2: Do, analyze & tweak — stop overthinking
“Ladies and gentlemen, if I may stall for some time. I’d like to show you what doing a start-up is like... Let me bring your attention to the back of the room!”
“Smile and wave at the camera!”
The audience bursts into laughter as they see my huge DSLR rested on a biscuit tin, which is nested atop a waste-paper bin that is itself seated on top of an elevated chair. Lifting atmosphere in the room — check! We proceed to kick-start our validation event with fervour.
While organizing two community events doesn’t count as a significant milestone, I think it’s a good time for me to pause and consolidate learning. Surely, many, who are testing their idea beta, will find this useful or at least insightful. This is after all, a journal for us to share our learning as we sprint towards proof of concept and marketability.
A few key learning I will discuss are the importance of taking action (do it); followed by careful observation - up to the tiniest details (analyze it); and finally, to make quick meaningful changes (tweak it).
This is going to be part One of our market-discovery trilogy.
Stop playing it out in your head. Do it, test it!
If you are running a business, the most important thing you need to do is to speak to your customers and find out their needs. In my experience, most start-ups fail because they didn’t have product market fit — basically building products that consumers didn’t want. That’s an issue that can be mitigated with diligence in client meeting and active testing of your hypothesis. While my co-founder and I were validating our business, we were concerned with bringing two parties to our platform:
1. How badly do businesses want to find out consumer sentiments?
2. Are consumers willing to give businesses their honest feedback?
In my experience, most start-ups fail because of they didn’t have product market fit — basically building products that consumers didn’t want.
When we were validating our previous idea, we arranged interviews with about 50 people, whom we spent about 40 minutes each to discuss their needs in-depth. Along the way, my co-founder and I debated for days about what each consumer feedback represented for us. It was really frustrating because we couldn’t see a clear pain point in any of the customer segment we explored. By this time, Facebook has already come up with an event function; and it was everything we had imagined. Disappointment and exasperation!
Naturally we wanted to do things differently this time. Imagine.. all 50 consumers and businesses at one point giving us live feedback right then and there.. Voilà.. an event it is! There is absolutely no time to waste once you set your mind doing something. You’ve got to ride the momentum. Make those quick decisions and force your brain into creative, problem solving mode: Think; if your run-way is one month left. What will you do to make it work? You can bet your ass you are going to show up, perform, and get creative.
“How do we get consumers to come?” → “Email blast.”
“But we don’t have an email list, how?” → “Get your local yellow page and call up everyone who you think will benefit from your business.”
Bottom line: You have got to do something; thinking won’t pay the bills.
Please stayed tuned for part Two in our series this coming Thursday.
