Thread: the lean startup method

Kickstarter.com may work for some.

hey Brandon,

I had the same question as you so I sent Neville of AppSumo (he made several of their courses, including the Sumo Business Blueprint and Kopywriting Kourse [not a typo]) an email and this is his response:

If you remember, Dollar Shave Club started before they officially had a product.

...however you're doing a slightly more "boring" business in the CRM space.
This means you might have to actually TALK to people doing hiring...and see if they'd be willing to pay for a service like yours.

You have WAY less people who do this, so they are very targeted and spread out.
You might want to research human resources concentions, magazines, forums etc and see what people need.
Ask a bunch of HR people if the software would work.

If you really want to validated it first, I'd say make a non-working "prototype" that shows screenshots of what the software will do, then show that to HR people for feedback. See if they'd be willing to pay for something like that.

Neville Medhora

Hope that helps a little. I still haven't figured it out 100% yet.

Originally Posted by bmarone

For anyone who's familiar with Eric Ries and his book The Lean Startup, he mentions something about, to paraphrase Eric, testing the waters before you even create a product. Sometimes you can actually create a minimum viable product and sell it to customers or you can see how customers respond even when you don't yet have any product. How might this be done? My main concern would be possibly violating certain ethical standards if a customer wished to buy a product I did not yet have. Any thoughts? Thanks.


Brandon

I read something similar to this in 4 Hour Work Week.

I believe there was a way that you could see if the person actually went to pay for it but Pay Pal would not charge them as it would say out of stock.

Then you have their email and you can contact them if you decide to go ahead with the product.

But I don't remember the details.

For me as a customer I wouldn't be too broken up if this happen to me so I would say this is an ok way to test a product before you make it.

As sam22 posted, you can create a clickable prototype. Fireworks is a nice tool to do that but there other online tools too. In this way you can put the must-have features, create the prototype and show it to people.

Could you tell us how your service will work? So we can give you ideas that fit better to your MVP.

Originally Posted by Dirk Pitt

Kickstarter.com may work for some.

What exactly is kickstarter? It sounds like a venture capital site.

Originally Posted by tincho1492

As sam22 posted, you can create a clickable prototype. Fireworks is a nice tool to do that but there other online tools too. In this way you can put the must-have features, create the prototype and show it to people.

Could you tell us how your service will work? So we can give you ideas that fit better to your MVP.

THIS is the sort of thing I need to learn. It seems the more you know the more you realize you don't know much of anything lol

Anyone else feel there is so much out there to learn you are falling behind no matter how fast you run?

Originally Posted by tincho1492

Fireworks is a nice tool to do that but there other online tools too. In this way you can put the must-have features, create the prototype and show it to people.

Thanks for sharing about Fireworks. I'm using Mockflow. It doesn't make a site look realistic like Fireworks but it's free and gets the job done for what I need.

Originally Posted by PatrickP

Anyone else feel there is so much out there to learn you are falling behind no matter how fast you run?

I feel that way all the time.

Originally Posted by bmarone

What exactly is kickstarter? It sounds like a venture capital site.

It's a site that lets you submit an idea for others (non-VCs) to fund your idea and help "kickstart" it.

Originally Posted by PatrickP

Anyone else feel there is so much out there to learn you are falling behind no matter how fast you run?

Yeah! It's how I feel most of the times, specially now that I'm in startup-mode and realize that everyday I encounter something new to learn that could help me to improve the business. I don't take it as something stressful anyway because I'm enjoying it.

Originally Posted by tincho1492

Fireworks is a nice tool to do that...

Where could I find that? It sounds like it would be a huge help. Thanks.

Originally Posted by bmarone

Where could I find that? It sounds like it would be a huge help. Thanks.

https://www.google.com/search?source...dobe+fireworks

Originally Posted by bmarone

For anyone who's familiar with Eric Ries and his book The Lean Startup, he mentions something about, to paraphrase Eric, testing the waters before you even create a product. Sometimes you can actually create a minimum viable product and sell it to customers or you can see how customers respond even when you don't yet have any product. How might this be done? My main concern would be possibly violating certain ethical standards if a customer wished to buy a product I did not yet have. Any thoughts? Thanks.

One approach you might consider is to have the sales page ready and all. That way you can test your copy before creating the product and see if anyone wants to buy. However, when they would press the "Buy now"-button, they would be taken to an opt-in page where you could say something along the lines of "You are here a bit early. We are still putting finishing touches to the product. However, we want to reward you for your interest towards our product and want to offer you 25% discount of the product when it comes live. To be eligible for the discount, just put your email address on the below field and we will send you a coupon code what you can use. Please note that signing up will not tie you in to anything - you will just be notified when the product goes live and will get the discount coupon."

Obviously the 'copy' above is not perfect or anything, but you'll probably get the idea.

Benefits of this approach to you:
- You can test the actual sales page and find out conversion % (can be used if wanting the get affiliates)
- You can get direct access to potential buyers -> you can survey them, get them to spread the word (if you come up with cool ideas)
- You most likely make your first sales on the first day your product goes live --> can get reviews early on

Benefits for customer:
- Doesn't obligate them to do anything
- Can get a discount coupon

I haven't used this approach yet, but will surely use after I decide what will my next product be.

I hope this helps.

Hey guys!
This post on the 4-hour-blog is a great source of inspiration to do a "lean" startup.

What I do, is setup a basic wordpress site. Make a "Buy" button with a link I track in Google Analytics.
I then do a simple ad on Facebook/Adsense (which also will tell my if people are interested in the idea at all).
Lets say I send 100 people to my test site from Facebook/Adsense. Then by using Google Analytics I can tell 5 people have clicked the "Buy now" link. These will give me a rough idea of how many people who are actually interested in buying the product.

Yes I'm aware, that many people who click "Buy" actually never buys, but this is an easy way to get some further insight to your idea.

Good luck!

How long does it take you to get 100 people to go to your sight from a Facebook ad?

How much does that cost you?

I have run a facebook ad for 4 months and not single click.

Originally Posted by Wuping

Hey guys!
This post on the 4-hour-blog is a great source of inspiration to do a "lean" startup.

What I do, is setup a basic wordpress site. Make a "Buy" button with a link I track in Google Analytics.
I then do a simple ad on Facebook/Adsense (which also will tell my if people are interested in the idea at all).
Lets say I send 100 people to my test site from Facebook/Adsense. Then by using Google Analytics I can tell 5 people have clicked the "Buy now" link. These will give me a rough idea of how many people who are actually interested in buying the product.

Yes I'm aware, that many people who click "Buy" actually never buys, but this is an easy way to get some further insight to your idea.

Good luck!

Tim Ferriss is a beast. I didn't want to cause problems by mentioning another site but since you did it I guess I can add my 2 cents. This dude Tim is cold (awesome, for the slang challenged). A true boss in every since of the word. How he started winning kickboxing tournaments cracked me the hell up. Not going to plug his book though because they might kick my ass on here.