Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
21–30 of 114 posts
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#22Twitter DMs are such a great resource. Go sign up for a tool like BuzzSumo (they got a free trial) and use their Twitter influencers search feature to find users that have a specific keyword in their bio. Then DM the ones that have DM public, and ask for their opinion. Or alternatively, just send them a regular message, without trying to spam.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#23I have just started trying to cold email/linked in message people who have the relevant job titles on linked in. I just started yesterday so I can't tell you how its going yet. But I'm looking for people at companies large enough to have people dedicated to a specific subsets of mechanical engineering.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#24Check 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.
sounds like a cool mom, gonna check it out.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#25I'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 th…
takes lot of courage to build in public, kudos!
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#26I 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…
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.
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#27Start with your personal social circle, and/or 1st level referrals from your personal social circle. It's what Steve Blank calls "Friendly First Contacts". If you can't figure out a way to get useful feedback / sign of a reason to move forward from this group, then pivot or give up. The other option is "spend money to blast your thing to a wide audience and hope for the best." Buy Reddit ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn a…
This worked better for me too, so far. But it may depend on what the OP is working on. I'm in a similar situation as the OP, and asked people I know if they know anyone in the target or related fields. And then further asked those people if they knew anyone, at the end of the call. I'm still in the middle of this process right now, so let's see how it goes.
I don't ask if they think my product is a good idea. I ask questions about how they work, delve deep into the mundane details of their work, understand what the challenges are. Finally I make my own assessment of whether my product will truly be valuable to them. I do plan on pitching to some of them later, once I've a fairly good understanding of how my target users work.
Importantly, I was clear with everyone (including my friends) that I wasn't selling or pitching anything, and that my goal was to understand how the target users work. The product idea I have is just the context explained in the first 2-3 mins, the rest of the call is just listening and understanding their workflow. The conversations usually tend to be 30 mins to 1 hr.
+100 for 'Four Steps to the Epiphany'. All of what I did above was lifted straight from that book. I've been internalizing it for years, and still fail to follow it properly. It's an amazing book :)
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#28You should search for potential customers/clients where they usually are.
I see many people advise Discord, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. They're all right! But it works for them.
If your potential customers are devs, use Hacker News. However, HN won't work if your potential clients are non-devs.
The only right answer (in my opinion) is: "it depends"
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#29I'm in a similar boat with the added difficulty of living in Japan and having a limited command of Japanese. My intended user base would be housewives.
I've got a few bilingual acquaintances I could demo the app to but don't want to risk not getting honest feedback. Does anyone have any additional points which might help?
Re: Ask HN: Where do you find potential customers to validate your idea / MVP?
#30I faced the same issue and in the end I had to create my own problem validation platform - needgap[1].
Problem, not startup idea because; IMO problems are tangible, it's something people have right now unlike a startup idea which materializes only when it solves the said problem and when enough people need it.
So, I created a platform which treats problems as first class citizen and new posts are strictly for problem statement. Startup ideas to solve those problems can be discussed in the comments along with existing solutions for the problem.
Potential customers search with their problem terms on search engines and so there's good chance they'll visit a needgap thread than a startup idea validation 'landing' page. I've been running needgap for nearly 2 years now and several projects have been created to solve the problems posted there.
I'm personally starting to get better understanding of the grammar of problems and startup ideas with needgap and hope to make it a even better validation platform with the help of the community.