Finding Customer (Interviews) Through a Giveaway

I believed if I setup a display at a local event called “Country Chicks” offering a giveaway for completing a survey that 30 people would enter to win during the 2 day vintage market.

I’m taking part in a Lean Startup Accelerator that provides funding and mentorship to entrepreneurs and startups in exchange for testing your hypothesis and sharing the results.

I have run a few experiments with this group and in this post will build upon the learning’s I got from the last test where I got funds to start a print campaign in our local newspaper to sell tickets to and fundraising packages for BossyAcres.club.

With this latest test I was focusing on just talking with people and having them complete a survey about the kind of outdoor activates they like. Not selling anything, just customer interviews.

I figured since it can be so hard to get random people to give you time for interviewing, and to not waste my time talking to people that probably weren’t early adopters, that I would offer a giveaway related to my product and talk to only people that came up because they were interested by the sign and offer.

I thought that at least 30 people would complete the survey to enter to win the giveaway during the 2 day event, instead 16 did. A few more people looked and asked questions, but when they saw how many questions are on the survey they didn’t want to take the time.

I got good feedback from people that did stop to talk. People thought it was a fun idea, and a couple mentioned another place you can do yoga with goats that had a 1000 person waiting list.

The survey I made was geared towards finding out what activities we could incorporate into Bossy Acres Club, how our pricing compared, where to advertise, how far people will travel, and people’s general interest in visiting a place where you can interact with animals while playing outdoor games.

I learned most people are finding about things to do online, the surveys showed, 11 people said online, 3 specifically said Facebook, 5 by word of mouth, 2 from the local paper, and 2 from friends recommendations.

We drew a random survey and emailed all the entries today to announce the winner. Also we offered a 7 day promotion to the others to be able to make a reservation in June for ½ price. I will share the results of this test after the 7 days.

I believe out of the 15 that took the survey and didn’t win the giveaway, that 5 will make a reservation for June with the ½ off offer.

If you want help creating hypothesizes to test out your business ideas, access to mentors, and funding along the way ask me how to get started.