Testing ideas that are unconventional

#1

Post by mrtunes » Tue, Nov 16, 2010, 4:10 PM UTC

I am researching the customer development and lean startup process. I think there are a lot of great concepts in this model. One thing i am curious about is how do you test the MVP of an unconventional idea?

For example i think about an app like twitter - no one really thought it would take off the way it did but it just had something you can't really research ahead of time with google keywords.

Re: Testing ideas that are unconventional

#2

Post by tbgvi » Tue, Nov 16, 2010, 4:27 PM UTC

I'd start by building a hypothesis of who your user would be - then go out and find some people that match that criteria. Landing pages & 'smoke tests' are some tools you can use to augment the info you gather, but you'll want to "get out of the building" and speak one on one with some potential users.

Also, when you're speaking with someone don't even bring up your product until the end. Focus on the problem that you're trying to solve.

I recently saw Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits speak, and would really recommend their book to anyone wanting to do customer development: http://www.custdev.com

Re: Testing ideas that are unconventional

#3

Post by mrtunes » Tue, Nov 16, 2010, 7:12 PM UTC

tbgvi wrote: post #2

I'd start by building a hypothesis of who your user would be - then go out and find some people that match that criteria. Landing pages & 'smoke tests' are some tools you can use to augment the info you gather, but you'll want to "get out of the building" and speak one on one with some potential users. Also, when you're speaking with someone don't even bring up your product until the end. Focus on the problem that yo…

thank you. i actually came up with this question after reading that book (which was fantastic).

does this process apply to everything, or is there some sort of 'phenomena' where an idea can be highly successful without any supporting evidence leading up to launch?