I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
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I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
1–10 of 66 posts
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#2I've considered standing outside on a hot day with a cooler of icecream sandwiches. At $1 each it's even more cost efficient, though people may not be as willing to stop and chat as they are in starbucks.
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#3You may enjoy taking a marketing class :-)
From what I understand, market analysis can always be done on the cheap if you want to take some accuracy risk - there's a clear self selection bias here, along with a geographic one (there may a common socioeconomic background for the coffee shop patrons)
Also, if you care about kids, it may have worked better at a coffee shop in front of a toy store in a mall, or at the food court if it's near say a pet store, to get actual parents - there might be fewer parents at a typical starbuck. But that is important if you believe they are you client - ie the persons who'll make the purchase decision, but maybe it will be the kids themselves in this example?
Critic aside, it's a great idea for a generalist app, but it may be less than ideal for say a specialized app.
Also, you should consider the alternatives - how much feedback do you think the same $50 may have got you using the mechanical turk?
There is a sincerity risk, but if you get say 100x more feedback, with the law of large numbers, I think that at least the obvious flaws could be noticed.
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#4Yeah, I like this. A founder I worked with did something similar but just gave out gift cards to talk to people about their needs in the space she was working in. Before having a product to show off.
It seems like a great way to get out of the echo-chamber a bit.
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#5Interesting that sitting in a cafe offering people $5 cash for their opinion would be a terrible idea, but offering them a free coffee is brilliant.
To @vishl, I don't take food from people on the street. I don't trust it. "What if it's poisoned?" What you're thinking does happen - some people offer me free candies, Reese Peanut Butter cups etc as an incentive to talk to me on the street. I avoid them.
The coffee coming from Starbucks directly makes it safer.
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#6I imagine a future where instead of running the gauntlet of clipboard wielding public researchers, it'll be pseudo-entrepreneurs hawking their herp-derp OS app.
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#7Asking if someone will pay is probably as valuable as not asking. Most people aren't going to say something bad about your work, when you are right in front of them. And talk is cheap.
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#8Too many early-stage companies focus on mobilizing people through — if you'll forgive the dreadful buzzword — social media.
If you can connect directly with your audience face-to-face, as Jim did, that's often a smarter strategy. I like the way Jim was able to segment his audience in a low-tech way (chatting with the parent-kid teams who are his core users/customers).
Yeah, you might be able to achieve a greater # of impressions online, but it's much harder to make those impressions meaningful and to make sure that they translate into action.
("Raising awareness" is complete bullshit. If people are aware but they don't take action, no one cares.)
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#9My team has done similar user testing in Starbucks quite a few times. Here's my $0.02: If you're willing to be bold, walk right up to people and ask, you don't need to offer free coffee or gift cards. We've found this is a better strategy for a few reasons: 1. It's cheaper. 2. It does not dramatically change the number of test users you can get in a given afternoon. And 3. You're more likely to get critical negative feedback if you dont put the users in the position of owing you for the coffee.
Re: I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks
#10Along the same lines: I launched a social calendar app with my roommate for students at UMichigan and to initially gain users, we bought $55 worth of pizzas and to get a slice, all students had to do was download our app and register as a user--we setup in one of the busiest halls on campus and needless to say, the pizza ran out pretty quickly.
Looking back, it was great for the numbers and a was a good marketing strategy, but we didn't gain much else from it. I wish we had setup a demo or something of the sort so that we could have also received feedback. Asking vital questions about the product should be geared toward customers, not as much founders, and we learned that the hard way.