In the previous post I laid out my venture canvas and set out the critical assumptions.
So what is the immediate thing anyone should do who has an idea.
Speak to potential customers.
You may get bored of me saying this throughout this series but it really is the most fundamental aspect of any venture. It's more important than the UI, the UX , the brand or the marketing. As without speaking to your cistomers then you have no idea what should form each of these disciplines.
Step 1: Start with a survey
Using the questions we pose to our potential clients as well as this great video from YCombinator we set out to find our what challenges golfers faced and if there was a need for our product.
The key here is to not even think of your product and the potential solution you are offering. You want to find out from your end user what they think and feel. You are not selling at this stage.
The questions I asked were:
1) What is the biggest challenge you face with your golf game?
2) What's the hardest thing about trying to get better at golf?
3) What, if anything, have you done to solve this problem?
4) Have you ever tried mind coaching before for your golf game and if so, how did you find it and if not, why not?
I then created a word cloud to see the common themes of the responses to some of the most important questions.
Step 2: Speak to customers
Surveys are great to get quantative data and an idea of customers challenges but to really understand them, it is best to conduct some 1:1 interviews.
At the end of your survey it's a good idea to ask respondents if they are happy to be contacted further to discuss your idea.
I emailed around 50 respondents asking for a 15minute phone call and immediately got 20 respondents happy to chat to me.
Listen. Do not sell.
The key here is to not even think of your product and the potential solution you are offering. You want to find out from your end user what they think and feel. You are not selling at this stage.
In the video above, they go into good questions to ask but the best conversations are natural. Just get them talking about their experiences and make sure you listen and document everthing.
A key piece of insight that came out of one of my interviews was:
"I like theory and stories to make the point but then I need practical stuff I can use before, during or after the round."
So what did I learn and what's next?
There were 2 main takeaways from all the surveys and customer interviews we did. They were:
1) Golfers wanted to have content clearly organised in a way that reflects how they think and play golf.
2) Having a practical element and not just theory was paramount to get them to consider using a product to help them improve their golf.
So the next stage is to start thinking about how the product could take shape, what is it going to be called? What is our positioniong in the market and what are the key epics we need in our MVP.
Next part coming soon.
You can read part 1 here.