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Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

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Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#101

Post by jamestimmins »

kennyfrc wrote: post #13
jamestimmins wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually done this approach? If so, I'd love to hear more. I ask because I often see the advice that people should look in the Shopify/Hubspot app stores for paid apps with lots of users/ratings and a low score, and while this sounds good, I've found very, very few apps that actually match these criteria. Typically a low score indicates a complaint that is outside of the technical scope that the app owners c…

Yes, I have used this for feature roadmaps. I don’t do what you mentioned (ie. look for paid apps with lots of ratings & a low score), I look for any app with at least one 1 star or 2 star reviews and I also look for any problem (doesn’t have to be related to an app) in reddit or any forum. To be fair, it’s quite a numbers game to dig for useful problems or insights. A related video about the process is Amy Hoy’s Sal…

Thanks, this is a good insight I hadn't considered.

So it doesn't matter if the app overall has a good rating, you're just looking for the signal that some subset of users isn't getting their needs met?

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#102

Post by carlossouza »

moneywoes wrote: post #98
carlossouza wrote: post #61

If the restaurant's idea is your idea, it is a good business. But the real money is not on the monthly fee you will charge restaurants to update their menus. That you can give for free. The money is in automating their purchases and delivery of ingredients they need to run their restaurants. If you already know what they serve and have a system running their backend, it's easy to do that. And everyone in this busines…

Would these be fully SaaS considering the operational difficulties? Or do 3rd parties handle the logistics. Would really appreciate if you could share some of these Brazilian companies as English google did not yield any results.

Sure! One of the hottest ones is called Zak.

They just received a $15 million check from Tiger Global and other top VC funds in Latin America. Here are some news articles in English:

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/10/digital-restaurant-startup...

https://www.bloomberglinea.com/english/tiger-global-leads-15...

https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/zakpay-series-a--b9...

Their website is in Portuguese only, but I think you can ask Google Chrome to translate it:

https://www.zak.app/

Hope it helps!

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#103

Post by kennyfrc »

jamestimmins wrote: post #101
kennyfrc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have used this for feature roadmaps. I don’t do what you mentioned (ie. look for paid apps with lots of ratings & a low score), I look for any app with at least one 1 star or 2 star reviews and I also look for any problem (doesn’t have to be related to an app) in reddit or any forum. To be fair, it’s quite a numbers game to dig for useful problems or insights. A related video about the process is Amy Hoy’s Sal…

Thanks, this is a good insight I hadn't considered. So it doesn't matter if the app overall has a good rating, you're just looking for the signal that some subset of users isn't getting their needs met?

Yes, exactly!

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#104

Post by moneywoes »

symonda wrote: post #86
moneywoes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different than searching crunchbase or pitchbook for a list of companies?

Our goal is to help people discover, test and validate startup ideas. We believe that a powerful free-text search engine is the best way to achieve this. At this time, we focus on helping people find companies via their product and service offerings and not so much on 'who they are' (i.e. company characteristics, investors etc..). This is a fundamental difference to those platforms you mention.

hmm the examples on the landing page are simply categories which crunchbase search has well.

I take it ya'll are indexing the descriptions and/or functions of the companies as well?

any query suggestions to highlight that difference in indexing?

great work

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#105

Post by moneywoes »

jsunderland323 wrote: post #82

Having dealt with the very problem and market you’re thinking of penetrating I would actually walk away right now. Go talk to 5 engineers from POS, delivery, or QR companies. Restaurant owners will tell you whatever you need to hear. This is an exception industry, where I highly recommend talking to industry veterans over restaurant owners. This problem is a siren song to optimistic entrepreneurs and bright eyed engi…

Wow that is one of the most informative HN posts I've read to date.

Thank you for sharing.

What are your thoughts on TOST? Further, when you talk about your purchaser not using your end product isn't that most SaaS businesses e.g. the person who purchases a crm will likely not be the user.

Lastly, I'd sincerely appreciate your thoughts on the supply side of the industry if possible. My email is in bio.

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#106

Post by mcsniff »

My anecdote:

I built a product without all the research, focus groups and whatever else they say you have to do. I needed the product, I could see clear as day that other people would too.

Yes, a good idea still needs to make it to people's eyes and ears, but IMO, if an idea is good enough that you can't pass up doing it -- do it. You probably won't regret it, regardless of the outcome.

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#107

Post by bfish15 »

Everyone is figuring it out and there's no one 'true' answer. The earlier on you are, the simpler your assumptions might be to test; they become more complex over time.

The first question to ask is to understand where you're starting from in your knowledge of the problem. What is the objective of your research?

Assuming you know who your competitors are and your objective is to know their shortcomings to differentiate your product, you might need to do this as there may be many products in this space.

Try to find places where people have spoken about the shortcomings of your competitors' product online. This should give you an initial baseline of some problems you might want to solve first, or at least some problems to validate because you assume no one else is addressing them.

Use the insights gained from that research as the answer to an equation where you've been given the answer first but are now looking for the question it answers.

Generate questions to help validate whether that's the right problem to solve. Start finding people to speak with on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., ask questions and gain insights. Do they match? Is there anything new? Which problems seem the most painful for the person you spoke to? Validate that on social media and repeat the cycle.

You can get help at: https://contrarian.ai, where they are looking for a few customers to work with to start validating their hypothesis.

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#108

Post by madrasman »

Identify your target audience: In your case, it would be restaurant owners who struggle with keeping their menus up to date on delivery apps and online platforms.

Define your research objectives: Determine what specific information you want to gather through your market research. For example, you may want to understand the challenges restaurant owners face in updating their menus or their willingness to adopt a new solution.

Conduct competitor analysis: Research existing products or services that aim to solve similar problems for restaurant owners. Analyze their features, pricing, customer reviews, and overall market share.

Gather feedback from potential customers: Reach out to restaurant owners through surveys, interviews, or focus groups to gather insights about their pain points, needs, and preferences related to menu updates and online platforms.

Test your product concept: Create a prototype or mockup of your product idea and present it to potential customers for feedback. This will help you validate whether your solution meets their needs and if there is sufficient demand for it.

Analyze the data: Once you have collected data from your market research activities, analyze it to identify patterns, trends, and key insights that can guide the development of your product.

Refine your product strategy: Based on the findings from your market research, refine your product strategy by incorporating customer feedback and addressing any identified gaps or opportunities.

Remember that market research is an ongoing process that should continue throughout the development and launch of your product. Stay open-minded and adaptable as you gather insights from potential customers and make adjustments accordingly.

Good luck with your market research journey!

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#109

Post by ezedv »

When conducting market research for a product, it's crucial to combine both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Surveys, data analysis, competitor analysis, and customer interviews can provide valuable insights. Additionally, exploring online forums, social media, and industry reports can help uncover trends and customer preferences.

Re: Ask HN: How to do market research for product?

#110

Post by xgb84j »

moneywoes wrote: post #96
xgb84j wrote: post #27

Here what has worked for us: Talk to potential customers and use very open ended questions. Be upfront that you are doing market research about delivery app usage in restaurants. Start with something like "How is using delivery apps going for you?" The opener the question the better. Most people love to complain. So your hope is that they rant about their biggest problem. If they don't ask about other areas until the…

Can you talk about the dichotomy for B2C? I ask since the small businesses like restaurants seem reminiscent of B2C.

Small business already have all the relevant characteristics of selling B2B. They have much more in common with a large multinational company than with a consumer, with regard to the sales techniques we use.

The main difference I see is, that with B2C you need to find a useful product and the rest is marketing. This is my simplistic view as somebody who doesn't do B2C. There is lots of nuance, but I believe you need a similar skillset for most B2C ideas.

B2B has a larger logical component to product design and sales pitch and a much more individualised emotional component.

The logical component is about what to sell to solve a specific problem. If you have different products that each increase a company's revenue by a million dollars, some of those won't sell for 0 dollars and for some you can charge more than a million. Why? Because the company doesn't make any decisions. The people within that company will buy what helps them and a sales representative will pay a million of the companies money to make a million more in revenue, because his numbers go up.

For the restaurants that means they might not pay anything for automation in regards to online delivery, because they don't even recognize how much time they waste. If they don't see a problem or only a temporary problem you won't sell your solution.

The emotional component is also very individual when selling B2B, because people have hidden agendas. They want a tool because their numbers go up and then they get a promotion. They want to start a project to make their boss pat them on the back. The want a tool that saves them time, so they can go home earlier and see their kids.

You see it's all about finding the right angle to solve a problem in B2B. It needs to solve some problem for the business and it must solve a big problem for the person you are selling to that they are emotionally invested in.

With restaurant owners it might mean that saving the owner two hours a week is worth nothing to them because they still need the same number of employees and it's not their two hours but their employee's.

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