The Tim Ferris way of testing ideas and how I did it.

Except that we are talking document management here, not edible shoelaces. Or anything that requires "manufacturing" in the made-in-a-factory sense of the word.

A fake ad survey for a document management system from someone who "works in the electronic Document Management and Records Management industry" is shouting out loud, "I'm too scared to actually sit and code this thing because it's hard and I might take too long to do it or completely fail to do it."

And I don't know why people like throwing money away. With $100, I'd rather buy 5 months of Linode server time than 12 email addresses. When the best entrepreneurs are saying be cheap, I think we ought to listen and be cheap. And with 2 weeks of time, I'd rather sit and code the most basic functionality of my app and show it to people I know who might need it.

Here's another (cheaper, although possibly less realistic) approach to this: I recently did some market research using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, and added a lead collection form as a bonus.

I put up a simple survey asking users about relevant background information and their experience with the problem my application is trying to solve. Included in this survey was a field to collect the user's email address. This field was very clearly marked as optional (it even appeared after the confirmation code that allowed turkers to complete the "HIT") and the label included something like "Your answers to this survey will help us to evolve the website to better meet your needs. If you'd like to be notified when the new site launches, please enter your email address here." along with an indication that users would receive exactly one email from us due to this form.

I was pretty pleased with the results of the survey--I received a lot of actionable information very quickly and cheaply (at about $0.10 per response) and I was pleasantly surprised that a little more than 10% of the respondants entered what looks like a valid email address.

I don't expect many of those 10% to convert (and lead generation wasn't the point of the excercise anyway) but I was very happy with the ROI on this survey.

Seeing who clicks on ads (and at with what copy) and later "soft" converts may be a more realistic test, but the MTurk approach is an order of magnitude less expensive.

That's a good question. My reservations mostly have to do with this:

Of the emails captured, how many participated in the beta and eventually became paying users?

Which is really asking: Will those users really come back after you've broken that initial promise?

Other success stories say yes. And I speculate that there's a certain window of time that you need to deliver in to make it work.

There'll always be another question though, so I guess it can't hurt to just give it a shot.

About a month ago, I filled out an application/request with an NGO (Acumen Fund) about opening a local chapter where I live (Melbourne). My understanding that if they get enough requests, they'll try to get a local chapter going.

Now I got a response that they want to extend a 'special invitation' to use their 'to register on our brand new community site' where I can get involved and maybe new chapters will materialise.

The timing seems pretty convenient. I suspect that the request/suggestion form was really a list building excercise for the community site. It's a Ning. Those things need to cross a substantial chicken-egg hurdle before they are any use to anyone.

I admit, there was no blatant lie. It isn't really exactly the same thing. But it is sending out feelers & building email lists. They could have also put up a big 'join our community' button on the site that led to an 'sorry, under construction' page after you "sign up." Maybe they did. It was a little bit sneaky. I still joined & even started a group. I'm not angry with them. I'll even mention it to others.

BTW: http://community.acumenfund.org/