Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?

I have a system for this.

You have two problems, not one. You need to get useful feedback out of 100pct of people, and you might need more people.

To get useful feedback, distill your potential value proposition to one sentence. If you have multiple ways of saying it, make a couple. But one sentence only and write it down.

When you have someone from the correct category (target market) on the phone, yes, you need a phone or video call, emit the potential value proposition sentence exactly as you have written it, not a word different.

Do not do any extra run up other than hi, how much time do you have, pleased to meet you...

Then, shut up. This is called 'the golden silence' in sales. and write down exactly the first thing they say.

The first thing they say is the truth, and you need to listen to it.

after that, you can try to dive in, and they might say they didn't understand at first, but the reality is people like to please people, and all that subsequent talk is secondary. The first reaction is what you bank on.

When you are going to market, you will put ad money, web site visits, whatever, into a single sentence, and it must resonate. Period. And it must resonate with your target market - you did remember to define your target market and potentially do a value proposition for each. There are a lot of target markets who don't buy the product (investors, influencers), but usually you do that only after you believe you have a thesis and resonating message.

fny · 5 years ago

> people like to please people

Related, if you can distance yourself from the product. Don't be the founder, owner, creator. Act like some other third party who is getting feedback.

People often mask criticism, and rarely do people tell someone that their baby is ugly. ;)

arnonejoe · 5 years ago

The book 'The Mom Test' is all about this.

luxuryballs · 5 years ago

This reminds me of a book I read recently called “New Sales. Simplified.” by Mike Weinberg, in terms of engaging with people on their terms and the “sales story”, highly recommended, and he narrates it himself on Audible. Very approachable for non-sales people but also refreshingly “back to basics” for those with sales exposure especially if wanting to focus on new sales acquisitions rather than just repeat customers.

anonseeker · 5 years ago

This is a great comment but it assumes the poster has answered their posted question of "Where do you find potential customers?"

ddingus · 5 years ago

Once they have their value statement, it boils down to researching where it fits, researching potential prospects, then applying what the comment says.

The research, coupled with networking should identify types of prospects and how they do business.

From there, asking ones self whether the value can make sense should filter out gross misalignment, but not always!

Really understanding how organizations make their money is needed to target. Networking, shopping the value prop around should spark interest and potential research targets.

ddingus · 5 years ago

This is very high value. Nicely refined down to the core.

My experience with less sharp, more verbose variations on this show that results are colored by how they like you and that diminishes the clarity of the value information.

This is actually a very insightful question. You get them the same way you plan to get customers after you have built the product. If you do not have a way to get customers to test the idea, then you do not have a way to get customers after you build the product. The process of building an MVP includes the process of figuring out distribution.

That said, it depends a lot on what type of product you are building. If you are building a consumer product, then throw some money at digital ads and drive some traffic towards your idea. If people are signing up but not using it, that's feedback right there. They are intrigued enough to sign up but find it lacking in some way to stick around. Fix one thing and see if that changes anything. If it does, great. If not, fix something else. Hint on what to fix, think about user engagement in steps. Always fix the first possible step that you know is not working. When users start crossing that step then go to the next one. Repeat until IPO.

lovedswain · 5 years ago

> The process of building an MVP includes the process of figuring out distribution.

As blindingly obvious as this is, I've never seen it put quite so concisely. Fantastic. I could've cut short so many bullshit discussions this way

nocommandline · 5 years ago

>> The process of building an MVP includes the process of figuring out distribution. <<

Maybe I'm being picky here but I disagree a little bit with this. At the start, your MVP might just have been for you i.e. to scratch an itch you have and it is only later that you think about getting other people to use/pay for it. So maybe your above statement will (should??) apply if your MVP was targeted for the public

bob33212 · 5 years ago

For anyone reading the above comment and thinking "Well maybe for your product, but my product is so great once people see it they will buy it"

You are setting yourself up for a hell of a sales problem.

jasondigitized · 5 years ago

Never heard it put it that way either but it is so true. I am going to add key qualifier for any idea I have: “How difficult is it to talk to someone about it?”

dahart · 5 years ago

Very well said.

Will add that from experience, the suggestion of knocking down technical issues is so important it’s mandatory, and it does not stop once you get users, it will be required forever with a successful product. BUT! ... IMO it’s a very slow way to acquire users, and the engagement improvements are incremental at best, unless you are making sweeping changes or hit something viral (unlikely!!) or were missing something truly glaring.

I did a lot of testing between adding features, addressing bug fixes, and then random attention-getting marketing like blog posts that happen to mention cats or money or other things people care more about than software. There was no comparison to the amount of attention they got, the tangential posts got many, many more people in the door than the technical posts. The steady feature improvements are what will keep people there, while fluffy emotional blog posts are what will attract a lot of window shoppers. It’s better if the blog posts are relevant to your app and feature announcements, of course, but I’m saying you can get users faster without writing software. It’s just a hard problem and a delicate balance, and don’t get stuck thinking “if I build it they will come.” Some amount of marketing is needed. And don’t get stuck writing ads or blog posts either. Some amount of attention to the software is needed. Do as much of both as you can.

It’s very difficult to get users to talk, whether they like your app or not. Most of the time they don’t know enough to be able to articulate what they want or need, even though they can sense it. And the people that talk loudest aren’t often the most important to listen to, especially if they’re not paying for anything.

Good Luck!

marktangotango · 5 years ago

> And don’t get stuck writing ads or blog posts either.

I felt this one.

ergocoder · 5 years ago

> If you do not have a way to get customers to test the idea, then you do not have a way to get customers after you build the product.

I need to hear this. Wow, really well thought out sentence. It makes so much sense.

harrisreynolds · 5 years ago

I really like the insight about the feedback you are getting from crickets (no feedback) and the engagement progression.

Just fix the next step and start with the first step.

Repeat until IPO (Ha!!)

Great comment.

- Go through your linkedin/twitter/instagram account. Find people who would be interested. Send them an email/message. - Search online for thought leaders, industry people that work in that specific field. Could be as easy as a twitter search, it could be more complex like going through white papers and emailing researchers. - There are websites where you can request all sorts of feed back including MVP feedback. Fiver has a section (https://www.fiverr.com/categories/programming-tech/user-testing-services), and there are niche sites https://www.usertesting.com/ - Hacker News? - Reddit has subs dedicated to that sort of thing: https://www.reddit.com/r/websitefeedback/ - Meetups. 2 different versions. 1) Prepare your elevator pitch and bring your phone 2) Message meetup founders and ask them where they would go for feedback, since they are thought leaders of sorts. - Dischord (mentioned elsewhere) - Just start trying to sell it the way that you planned on marketing it (hopefully you've thought about your marketing plan)

bbulkow · 5 years ago

takinola · 5 years ago

martin-adams · 5 years ago

I'm going through this with the app I'm building in public. The things I've done that work well are:

1. Build in public—I'm using twitter heavily to share the journey, progress, etc. I've optimised my twitter profile to make it super clear what I'm doing. https://twitter.com/Martin_Adams

2. YouTube. I'm creating deep, genuinely helpful videos aimed directly at users who have a need and are searching for problem in the direct space my product fit in. I'm creating videos teaching how to use competitor products with an opportunity to introduce what I'm building. I don't think there's any platform as accessible to tap into active search results. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6qfrRVUOO8

3. Funnel people to join your mailing list. I'm using ConvertKit and now averaging about 5 people per day just from the above two actions. My record is two days with 19 people dropping their email in. I have 124 people on my email list who are now interested and relevant to my project due to the YouTube content. My landing page is here: https://join.flowtelic.com.

4. Reply to other people on HN, Reddit, etc and try to be genuinely helpful with an opportunity to introduce what you're doing. This reply is an example of that.

From there you can chat to people on Twitter and email your mailing list directly for feedback.

suyash · 5 years ago

takes lot of courage to build in public, kudos!

jcadam · 5 years ago

Yes, especially when you know its time to abandon a project because it's not getting any traction - after you've been telling everyone about it for months. Should keep in mind nobody else is going to think much about your failed project but you :)

stevenhuang · 5 years ago

Looks like a great, well-polished note taking app.

Especially like the simple pricing and no vendor lock in.

Well done, might take this for a spin sometime.

https://obsidian.md

jppope · 5 years ago

adav · 5 years ago

Check out The Mom Test and find an audience to talk to first. Validate any idea long before you build an MVP. In my opinion it's two separate steps.

I must admit I've also fallen in your trap many times myself. It's too fun to just go ahead and build something sometimes without considering the best way to find those early users first.

senko · 5 years ago

Seconding The Mom Test recommendations. Terrible name, incredible book - full of down to earth, actionable advice.

That said, the first step is finding your customers. If you can't find them to talk with them, how will you find them to sell to them?

vincentmarle · 5 years ago

I wish this book wasn’t called the Mom Test, people I’ve recommended it to didn’t take it seriously because of that. But it’s definitely one of the best books ever written on problem validation.

I had also previously dismissed it because of the stupid name (...and it should be Mum Test if anything...) but luckily my friend insisted that I read it.

I often skim the crib sheet on the last few pages to remind myself of the goodness within.

i once had a vc, during a pitch, who asked if i could sell to her mom. As it was database infrastructure, it seemed kinda wrong, but it turns out her mom owned a small business and was the primary tech buyer, and the mom was in the lobby because they were supposed to go to lunch. I didn't get interest from the firm but it was a heck of an experience.

sounds like a cool mom, gonna check it out.

hirokib · 5 years ago

Honestly for us (https://butterflylabs.gitlab.io/api-documentation) we just cold emailed a large number of folks we thought were our target demographic. Basically LinkedIn, look for product managers who are mid-level, and reach out. We got our first two customers from there on our MVP. The thing to keep in mind is if your MVP would solve a real problem, usually folks will be willing to try your solution because it's something they really need. Otherwise your product is just a nice to have and you're probably close to but not quite hitting the right problem spot.

1_over_n · 5 years ago

I would say ideally wherever they hangout. Figuring that out is a big part of the job, next is to find out how to engage with them. Going through that process will lead to a lot of learning. Figuring out a distribution channel for whatever you are doing is essential for getting to market and finding early users will inform that process. Read the mom test if you haven't already so you have a framework for how to speak to potential users.

this! if you are not the customer, it's going to be hard to build for them. You need to live, breathe like customer everyday. Hangout where they are.

allochthon · 5 years ago

I have the same question as you. Two sources of potential feedback I've found, which are not spammy or unpleasant for people:

- Adding an update to an Indie Hacker product profile with a link to a blog post

- Adding a post to the "Share Your Startup" thread in r/startups, which has been a thread that is started on the first of each month [0]

But, in general, I have the same questions as you, so I don't imagine this will provide more than a small boost in feedback.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/?f=flair_name%3A%22Share%2...

granshaw · 5 years ago

I'm not very experienced as a founder, but I put very low weight in audiences on sites like indie-hackers, r/startups, HN, product-hunt... it's a very specific kind of person who hang out there – mostly just tech and growth folks, and super-gung-ho-early-adopter types, who are a poor substitue for actual long-term customers

I would say FB groups, subreddits, meetups around your potential customers' industry are a much better start.