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I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

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Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#71

Post by SonicSoul »

btilly wrote: post #40

Surveys may be getting at the wrong question. As http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html says, you want to work on an idea that a few people really want. Then you want to go out and find some of those people. Talk to them. And make what they want. Concrete case in point. I remember reading an example of how an early focus group mostly panned a particular automobile, but 1/3 of people REALLY LOVED IT. On a survey it w…

that's a good point. there are plenty of successful niche market businesses. sometimes 5% of market share is all you need. It stands to reason that the more niche your audience, the more important marketing becomes.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#72

Post by GFischer »

Guvante wrote: post #25
GabrielF00 wrote: post #5

Unless I'm missing something here it looks like there were a total of 17 responses (8 yes 9 no). Are you really making a major business decision on a survey with an N of 17?

> Methodology: Conducted by Google Consumer Surveys, March 26, 2013 - March 31, 2013 and based on 45 online responses. Sample: National adult Internet population.

When I was looking for a survey system, I looked into Google Consumer Surveys, but I couldn't set it up like I wanted to for my budget.

We found Survata, an Y Combinator company, they helped us a lot and overdelivered :) - our project is still on standby / awaiting money, but the results Survata gave us were top notch and gave us several insights. We were looking for a much better confidence interval, so we had a screening question.

http://survata.com/home/

We also thought of using Mechanical Turk, but it's the wrong place for Rewire Attire.

I've toyed with some notions for better fits :) , mostly based around getting measurements through photos (android, webcams, whatever), and systems for that appear every so often on the news :) .

Edit: I'm not related to Survata in any way, just a happy customer.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#73

Post by frogpelt »

edw519 wrote: post #41

The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money ... Whenever I read "target audience" and "with enough money" in the same sentence, I run the other way. My experience with prospects "with enough money": - there are far less of them than everyone else - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so... - they really don't really understand the concept of "value" - they…

I'm going to guess (purely a guess) that before your experience with rich people you already held some sort of grudge against rich people in general.

I say this because most of your complaints (besides the first complaint, obviously) either apply to consumers in general or are based on nothing more than your opinion. And it appears to be a poisoned opinion.

If I have a net worth of $10B or -$100K, paying $250 or more for a pair of jeans is going to make me far more critical of sub par performance from the vendor.

Do you think rich people go raise a fuss at Walmart when they get poor service or a poor quality product? Of course not. There's no expectation of a great experience at Walmart. Paying extra for a high end experience makes critics out of everyone. And if you start the experience with a vendetta against people who have more money than you it's not going to turn out well.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#74

Post by GFischer »

mortenjorck wrote: post #31
realdlee wrote: post #23

Surveys have their place, but I'm a little surprised that a student of Steve Blank/Eric Ries' teachings wouldn't be "getting out of the building" and talking to people.

Indeed. Surveys can help you frame what you're looking for, but you need to talk to real people and get a bit more of an understanding of why they feel the way they do.

Sometimes it's tough, and a survey is a poor but doable substitute - I don't know how I would go about interviewing women in the +100k earnings range, and for one of my projects I did a survey because the potential customers were geographically far away.

However, I'd never have invested so much before knowing the audience.

And he had this HUGE problem of having invested his ego on a (probably very cool) solution, which is one of the toughest challenges for us tech types.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#75

Post by svachalek »

hexedpackets wrote: post #62
columbo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point, it was the first thing I noticed as well. 17 responses isn't even enough to throw a margin of error at, the entire survey is effectively a margin of error of 100%. If it really was only 17 responses that's the equivalent of asking five people on the street if they like hot dogs and then deciding based on their answers to open up a laundromat in Brooklyn.

Once you add in a proper confidence interval, 17 responses on a yes/no question is enough to make decisions like this - as long as you know in advance what your target numbers are. The downside of the small sample is that your margin is going to be extremely large, of course. Using Clopper-Pearson at95% confidence tells us that between 23.3% and 70.8% would answer yes to this question. I do agree that is probably sti…

It's then breaking them down into subcategories. Look at the confidence interval on the posted charts: +/- 80% on the high income responses this survey was interested in. I.E. worthless.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#76

Post by larrys »

PaulHoule wrote: post #52
edw519 wrote: post #41

The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money ... Whenever I read "target audience" and "with enough money" in the same sentence, I run the other way. My experience with prospects "with enough money": - there are far less of them than everyone else - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so... - they really don't really understand the concept of "value" - they…

High end consumers are often jerks, but so are some people who sell to them. I know a woman who makes hand-knit sweaters for about $250. She makes them out of acrylic yarn, which shocks me. If I'm going to spend a lot for clothes I'm going to want a nice material, like wool. Particularly when you consider the cost of the labor, the extra cost of the wool is nothing. She told me she did sell a wool sweater to somebody…

"She told me she did sell a wool sweater to somebody who went home and washed in hot, it shrank, and then heard no ends of complaints about it, so she resolved to never sell wool sweaters unless they are specially commissioned."

n=1 there then, right? Perhaps she was a bit to hasty based on that single data point?

One of the things luxury brands do is bake into their costs margin to account for customers like this. Or to account for unreasonable people.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#77

Post by fludlight »

dizzystar wrote: post #39
timborden wrote: post #32

Wow...thanks for all the comments. I've been a causal reader of Hacker News, but this was my first post. I'm really impressed all the comments. Lots of great questions/comments. There was one thing I neglected to mention in the blog post, that I should mention now. We ran a contest (prior to the survey) that required contestants to submit their body measurements. We wanted shoppers to see the power of submitting thei…

Yuck. Without a doubt, the biggest failures in my marketing career started with "let's give them a free..." Gaining market share or customers via free X promos is a doomed strategy. I have my theories, but the main thrust is some mumbo jumbo about perceived value. I've sat in interviews with more than one company that said with a not-ironic face that suffering now will cause explosive results in the long term. I pipe…

I recall reading an article about a pair of grad students who realized that there was a correlation between price and perceived value. IIRC they were researching condom use in the third world and figured out that the locals would use condoms purchased at stores, but would discard condoms passed out for free by NGOs. So the grad students started their own NGO that uses "cool" Trojan/Durex-style marketing to sell condoms dirt cheap.

I can't find the article, but it may be this group:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/2005/summer/classno...

Also see:

http://www.fordham.edu/images/undergraduate/economics/facult...

From page 4:

Obviously, the whole point of providing condoms is that they be used for sexual activities...They are not meant to be used, for example, for water storage. However, if they are free, then there are a large number of possible uses for condoms that generate positive utility even though the benefits do not cover the costs and they do nothing to prevent the spread of HIV. For example, Epstein (2007, p271) reports that when the CSM run by PSI in Zimbabwe tried to distribute free female condoms, the officials found that people were removing the plastic rings and selling them as jewelry.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#78

Post by larrys »

edw519 wrote: post #41

The target audience for Rewire Attire, the high end fashion marketplace, was women with enough money ... Whenever I read "target audience" and "with enough money" in the same sentence, I run the other way. My experience with prospects "with enough money": - there are far less of them than everyone else - many of them didn't earn it themselves, so... - they really don't really understand the concept of "value" - they…

"larrys, My list does not directly contradict the success of just about all luxury brands that have been successful. They would probably agree."

But your first sentence said 'My experience with prospects "with enough money"' where is the evidence (even anecdotal) to indicate that luxury brands would agree?

While luxury brands certainly have customers that fit all the points that you make I find it very hard to believe (from my anecdotal experience) that what you are saying is ubiquitous among luxury brands and that they would agree.

Re: I dropped over 40 grand when I could have spent $100

#80

Post by in2liberty »

timborden wrote: post #32

Wow...thanks for all the comments. I've been a causal reader of Hacker News, but this was my first post. I'm really impressed all the comments. Lots of great questions/comments. There was one thing I neglected to mention in the blog post, that I should mention now. We ran a contest (prior to the survey) that required contestants to submit their body measurements. We wanted shoppers to see the power of submitting thei…

why not simply reverse it, like they do in the sale of used Levis and suits?

Force the high end designers to measure everything thigh hips, waist, shoulder width, etc.

Then let people sort down based on drop down settings

THEN suggest others that fit the settings they used.

Don't actually ASK for their measurements.

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