Is it talk with potential customers (market research) or talk with existing customers (customer service and support)? Seems like it should be the latter. If you have no customers, then consider a new product, right?
Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
21–30 of 116 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#22Highly recommend the Mom Test which is exactly about this.
https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/...
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#23Cart is ahead of the horse. Getting out of the office to talk to potential customers has NOTHING to do with selling. It has to do with learning about the sector you THINK you want to be working in. In other words, you need to accept that your foundational knowledge is largely made up of information that made its way to you by going through your filter of preconceived notions and biases. My advice to my sales team (an…
Absolutely this. This is also one of the reasons why there seem to be many successful business where the founder "scratched an itch" - they built a business on something they knew a lot about.
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#24Cart is ahead of the horse. Getting out of the office to talk to potential customers has NOTHING to do with selling. It has to do with learning about the sector you THINK you want to be working in. In other words, you need to accept that your foundational knowledge is largely made up of information that made its way to you by going through your filter of preconceived notions and biases. My advice to my sales team (an…
I agree largely with goatherders. Perhaps the question you should be asking is "how can you go listen to your customers"
Yes indeed! I would add on to this, instead of asking "how can I make $X?", ask "how can I provide $X of value to people?".
You provide value by meeting people's needs. So it is very valuable to learn about those needs!
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#25Wouldn't even talk to them. Try to find ways to observe in a passive manner instead.
If you are making software for restaurants, go sit at the restaurant during peak and off hours, and be keen about what's actually going on, down to the minute detail.
If the problem you are solving is in the kitchen, see if you can offer a hand doing dishes for free and observe at a detailed level what everyone else is doing and what their problems also are.
Asking questions in survey format could potentially work, though I doubt it. It could also be high barrier if you are basically a nobody trying to talk to restaurant owners.
The worst thing that can happen is people telling you they have a problem they don't actually have, and you create an imaginary problem to solve that nobody cares about.
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#26For me, when I was a tool for indie iOS devs - still at the idea stage, I began talking to people online on iOS dev forums - iphonedevsdk forum, and reddit.com/r/ios /r/iphone, etc - I asked my friends who I knew were devs. I live in Poland, and my target audience is mostly US, so their feedback was slightly limited, but still valuable, because I could talk to them in real life - as soon as possible I went to San Fra…
First read I was thinking- 'well, maybe that's what you were, but don't be so hard on yourself...' realized you must have omitted the word 'developing'.
As a former indie iOS dev, ( ie. a tool for Apple Computer Inc. ), my honest feedback is- if I was ever making enough on the App Store to afford a $15 monthly subscription, I wouldn't need the help; for the most part indie iOS developers don't make jack so our #1 consideration for any product is going to be "Is it free...?"
Of course if you already figured that out; but saw that people were thinking "Why the hell am I not making any money on the App Store, maybe I need; like; SEO?" and are likely to give it a try- even if they don't like it, even if it doesn't work, you still got $15 out of that customer which is 10x what they're making on each customer who downloads their $1.99 app; so- good on you.
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#27> some details about the domain I’d like to work for
Improving here might be crucial.
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#28Cart is ahead of the horse. Getting out of the office to talk to potential customers has NOTHING to do with selling. It has to do with learning about the sector you THINK you want to be working in. In other words, you need to accept that your foundational knowledge is largely made up of information that made its way to you by going through your filter of preconceived notions and biases. My advice to my sales team (an…
Absolutely this. This is also one of the reasons why there seem to be many successful business where the founder "scratched an itch" - they built a business on something they knew a lot about.
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Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#29[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How to actually “talk to your customers”?
#30Cart is ahead of the horse. Getting out of the office to talk to potential customers has NOTHING to do with selling. It has to do with learning about the sector you THINK you want to be working in. In other words, you need to accept that your foundational knowledge is largely made up of information that made its way to you by going through your filter of preconceived notions and biases. My advice to my sales team (an…
Absolutely this. This is also one of the reasons why there seem to be many successful business where the founder "scratched an itch" - they built a business on something they knew a lot about.
I think the "build a product to scratch your own itch" is one of the worst pieces of advice for entrepreneurs, especially first time entrepreneurs. The reason is that most entrepreneurs end up building businesses to scratch an itch, not solve a real serious problem.
Source: been there, done that.