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Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

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Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#1

Post by sdwrage »

So I started work on socialatte.com as I noticed a ramp up of users who love to post about their coffee experiences on Twitter. Being that I love websites that leverage currently large social networks, love niches, and myself love coffee I thought I would test out the hypothesis that users want to share their coffee experiences with other users in a coffee niched social environment. I set out and built the current prototype for socialatte.com from Ruby on Rails (one because I knew the framework and another because it is good for quickly getting something up) as well as used twitter bootstrap for responsive design (needed it to work in mobile browsers). Took about a couple days of work but got it to where it is today.

I had added instagr.am support and now, as of today, ios6 users have the option of file uploads where they can take a picture from there directly. Now all is said and done, I have been trying to market this via social networks and having very little luck drawing in users. My analytics report is getting an average of... 10-20 users a day?

I am doing something fundamentally wrong marketing wise or my hypothesis is proven invalid... which I think that is far too early to tell. I am sort of stuck on where to go from here. My hope is to eventually get coffee related vendors on board to advertise with us, get an app going, and maybe eventually sell the website to someone who wants to take it over but that is thinking far too far ahead.

Any advice would be beneficial.

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#3

Post by mgkimsal »

sherm8n wrote: post #2

What makes you think your hypothesis is invalid? How often do your current users share their coffee experiences? I would do more customer discovery and see if you can gain anymore insight. Go to a coffee shop and ask people what they think of your concept.

That's exactly what I told sdwrage to do last week - go to the local coffeeshops and chat with people! :)

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#4

Post by sdwrage »

sherm8n wrote: post #2

What makes you think your hypothesis is invalid? How often do your current users share their coffee experiences? I would do more customer discovery and see if you can gain anymore insight. Go to a coffee shop and ask people what they think of your concept.

Yeah that is why I said it is too early to tell that it is. As for going to a coffee shop and asking people, how do you think I should go about that. I wouldn't want to go sit down at a random table and be like "Hey you, what do you think of this idea". Maybe my head is in the wrong place as far as customer discovery is concerned :) Thank you for the advice.

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#5

Post by mgkimsal »

sdwrage wrote: post #4
sherm8n wrote: post #2

What makes you think your hypothesis is invalid? How often do your current users share their coffee experiences? I would do more customer discovery and see if you can gain anymore insight. Go to a coffee shop and ask people what they think of your concept.

Yeah that is why I said it is too early to tell that it is. As for going to a coffee shop and asking people, how do you think I should go about that. I wouldn't want to go sit down at a random table and be like "Hey you, what do you think of this idea". Maybe my head is in the wrong place as far as customer discovery is concerned :) Thank you for the advice.

that's exactly what you do!

2 things:

1. Check with the owners - ask if you can do a few customer surveys. Tell them you'll stop after X hours or if anyone complains.

2. Buy some gift cards from the shop and give them out - $5 gift card for... 10 minutes of their time. Have a survey of set questions, but go open-ended as well.

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#6

Post by sdwrage »

mgkimsal wrote: post #5
sdwrage wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that is why I said it is too early to tell that it is. As for going to a coffee shop and asking people, how do you think I should go about that. I wouldn't want to go sit down at a random table and be like "Hey you, what do you think of this idea". Maybe my head is in the wrong place as far as customer discovery is concerned :) Thank you for the advice.

that's exactly what you do! 2 things: 1. Check with the owners - ask if you can do a few customer surveys. Tell them you'll stop after X hours or if anyone complains. 2. Buy some gift cards from the shop and give them out - $5 gift card for... 10 minutes of their time. Have a survey of set questions, but go open-ended as well.

Great idea! :). Don't know how far I would go with the $5 gift cards but definitely getting users to interact a bit more formally.

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#7

Post by sherm8n »

sdwrage wrote: post #4
sherm8n wrote: post #2

What makes you think your hypothesis is invalid? How often do your current users share their coffee experiences? I would do more customer discovery and see if you can gain anymore insight. Go to a coffee shop and ask people what they think of your concept.

Yeah that is why I said it is too early to tell that it is. As for going to a coffee shop and asking people, how do you think I should go about that. I wouldn't want to go sit down at a random table and be like "Hey you, what do you think of this idea". Maybe my head is in the wrong place as far as customer discovery is concerned :) Thank you for the advice.

Go to a highly trafficked coffee shop, grab a latte, and just start talking to people around you. You'll just have to get over the awkwardness of talking to strangers :)

Have a set of questions you can rotate through. Sometimes you can ask 1 or 2 questions before they get annoyed. Other times you can have hour long conversations. Use your judgement to see how engaged they are.

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#8

Post by alid »

Hey man! I take pics of all my coffees :) You've hit on a trend - the key is to nail an incentive for people to use you over simply uploading it onto Facebook/Instagram. Why would users use SocialLatte? To see what the coffees at particular coffee shops are like. To network with other coffee lovers. To find gourmet blends. To find cosy coffee shops to catch-up with friends.

Just putting my marketing hat on here, but I suggest you refine your value proposition - e.g. on your homepage replace 'Sign in and start sharing' with something more value-laden, like 'For coffee lovers' or 'The ultimate coffee guide' or 'The world coffee hub'. For PR, the press love lists, e.g. 'Top 5 coffee shops', and you can do thought-leadership pieces on coffee habits and culture. Hope this helps!

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#9

Post by sdwrage »

alid wrote: post #8

Hey man! I take pics of all my coffees :) You've hit on a trend - the key is to nail an incentive for people to use you over simply uploading it onto Facebook/Instagram. Why would users use SocialLatte? To see what the coffees at particular coffee shops are like. To network with other coffee lovers. To find gourmet blends. To find cosy coffee shops to catch-up with friends. Just putting my marketing hat on here, but…

Definitely helps, thank you :) So maybe more than just sharing coffee pictures. Maybe links as well :) Possibly rendering/generating a screenshot of the website as the image itself would do.

Re: Startup Hypothesis: Do users want to be social with coffee?

#10

Post by alid »

sdwrage wrote: post #9
alid wrote: post #8

Hey man! I take pics of all my coffees :) You've hit on a trend - the key is to nail an incentive for people to use you over simply uploading it onto Facebook/Instagram. Why would users use SocialLatte? To see what the coffees at particular coffee shops are like. To network with other coffee lovers. To find gourmet blends. To find cosy coffee shops to catch-up with friends. Just putting my marketing hat on here, but…

Definitely helps, thank you :) So maybe more than just sharing coffee pictures. Maybe links as well :) Possibly rendering/generating a screenshot of the website as the image itself would do.

Sweet! Yep more than just pics, I can see you positioning yourself as the world coffee hub, connecting coffee lovers globally. This then becomes an attractive proposition for advertisers of everything coffee (coffee bean brands, coffee machines, coffee making courses etc) :)
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