5 tips on nailing your product/market fit in just 1hr a month
Last night I was at an event, where I got speaking with some VC’s and also some folks who are in the midst of their startups. A resounding theme I heard was that product/market fit is a thorny issue because it can often be really hard to figure out who your market really is. So, I thought I’d jot down some thoughts on how you can do some business shifting research, by investing just 1 hour a month.
I get it, you are super busy and your mind is in a billion places all at the same time and you’re probably wearing more hats than your head can manage. What if I told you that, doing an hour of research a month, with your customers, or even potential customers, could be the one time that you get to take the load off?
So many hats, so little time!
It will also be the time when you learn and get some of the most creative ideas about your business. It will also likely lead to revenue growth because you now have this new found understanding and perspective.
Sounds too good to be true? It's not, I promise.
How do you do it with a limited budget and time? Read on:
Give yourself an hour a month.
Pre-emptively block out 30 minutes every two weeks from your calendar, this is an hour a month. If you can do more, great but this is usually a good place to start!
Out of these 30 minutes, make 5 minutes a short guided meditation that takes you away from the stresses that you are currently dealing with, so you can absorb the information that comes from your customers.
Then spend 20 minutes either talking to customers or reading any feedback that they have given to your customer service teams.
The last 5 minutes are for your own brainstorming, it's a chance to just write down key points that you can think about for the rest of the week.
2. Get access to your customers/potential customers.
If you have a large number of customers, whom you are able to communicate with via social media for example, it may be worthwhile posting a short participation survey, asking them simple questions such as:
Demographics: Gender, age range, where they are based?
Length of time using the product?
Whether they would be keen on taking part in research to improve the product?
This simple method allows you to build a repository of potential participants to reach out to and speak with every month.
If you don’t have direct access to your customers, or you are at a VERY early stage, it may just be useful to search for any forums that relate to the topic your business is trying to solve. I’ve found social media to be great for this too, with groups on facebook to #’s on twitter leading me to some really interesting insights.
3. Ask the right type of questions, to get honest feedback. No leading!
Learn from this, if your question is a “how” and “what”, you are on the right track. Stay away from leading questions, that result in simple yes or no answers.
This part can often be the most difficult and time consuming . So, I suggest expediting this process by using ChatGPT to come up the good research question for your business. Even I use it! Here is an example of what I got when I asked what would be good questions for a startup to ask for customer feedback:
Primary Purpose: What was the primary reason you chose our product/service? Understanding why customers choose your offering can help you focus on your unique selling points.
Value Proposition: What do you find most valuable about our product/service? This helps you identify and emphasise the key benefits that resonate with your customers.
Improvement Areas: What aspects of our product/service do you think need improvement? This will highlight areas for refinement and development.
User Experience: How easy was it for you to use our product/service? Were there any difficulties or challenges you encountered? This uncovers usability issues and points of friction.
Frequency of Use: How often do you use our product/service? Understanding usage patterns can help you gauge customer engagement.
Future Expectations: What features or improvements would you like to see in future updates? This provides insights into customer expectations and potential directions for product development.
These are just some of the areas that you may want to explore and it's worth concentrating on the ones that you have the least knowledge around. Remember to keep the questions concise, easy to understand, and open-ended to encourage honest and valuable responses from your customers.
4. Try to level with your customers, practice listening and fight the urge to defend your product/service.
It is incredibly hard not to take feedback that may be “negative” personally. After-all, you know how much work has gone into this product, this person, if only they understood how things worked! I get it.
You’ll know you’re doing research right, when you’re talking 20-30% of the time and your customer is talking 70-80% of the time.
I challenge you to think of every bit of “negative feedback” as an opportunity for business growth and shape-shifting. Ask your customer for their ideas:
“Oh you mentioned you didn’t like x feature, what do you think would work better?”
Almost instantaneously, you now have an opportunity to go out and test a future revenue generating idea.
5. Some housekeeping:
If you have direct access to customers, make sure you reach out to them ahead of time, to schedule in time to chat, through a non-business email. Ensure that you have collected their consent to participate, here is a short consent form that we use at 100kicks. A simple email may read as follows:
“Hey Customer,
We would like to invite you to take part in some research for X product/service, and gather your feedback. We have time slots of 20minutes on x day. There is an incentive of X amount as a thank you from us for taking part.
Please fill out the consent form if you would like to take part and let us know the time that works best for you.”
If you can give them a small incentive, such as £5 for participating in a short interview or even a freebie, make sure you do that!
Why is this important? Bias. People need to feel almost as if you don’t work for the company, so that they can feel safe enough to express their true feelings about the product.
Finally, if you think you may be interested in chatting with us here at 100kicks because you need a more tailored approach to research, or simply need some guidance on getting started, please reach out over email: hello@100kicks.co.uk
