Tenoch Esparza is the co-founder of Sensory Percussion, a new startup generation electronic drums. This position is part of the lessons learned series and was originally published on the blog NYU Entrepreneur.
As Steve Blank preaches in his book Startup Owner's Manual, you must leave the building for Client Discovery interviews and see your customers' pupils dilate when they see your product. Nothing beats meeting face-to-face with a client.
A new era of tech events began
We're back in New York in November for the 4th edition of our technology event focused on growth.
But ask the same questions of potential customers time and time again is difficult. It is tempting to try to automate this process. After all, the time of a founder is incredibly valuable.
However, online surveys are usually a bad idea for startups at an early stage. Let's face :. It is difficult to write a balanced and impartial, get the right people to take it, and extract meaningful insight of the process
You must be well versed in statistics, human psychology and behavior to avoid bias of the survey-taker (and your own), and user experience to ensure the end of the survey. The investigations are time and effort, and some simple mistakes can ruin your results.
That being said, there are situations in which investigations can be more appropriate than the interviews: First, when you have completed the development of customer interviews and are ready to validate your ideas scale, and second, when you need to gather specific information about your target market.
In our case, we needed to have a better idea of ​​the batsmen electronic equipment have to know what the installed base was for our product. So we went on the web and created an investigation.
This is what we learned:
1. Use surveys to validate what you have learned from customer development interviews
When interview drummers, we asked about the equipment they use and how often they buy new gear. We had a "pretty good" idea of ​​what was there, so when the survey responses started pouring, it was not completely caught us by surprise.
Beware of confirmation bias, however. A common way this can happen is by limiting the choices of answers only what you think is relevant. Make sure that you ask questions that allow a wide range of responses.
2. Keep it simple
Do not ask open opinion of questions, like "What do you think of Roland V-Drums?" Save those questions for your client interviews!
It is much easier to interpret answers to such questions when you can read body language and ask followup questions. In your investigation, focus on questions with factual answers that are easy to interpret.
For us, we need to know if the batsmen had an audio interface, its form factor, and how many mic preamps it has. These questions are easy to install, and most importantly, easy to answer.
3. Know that meets your poll
You can not predict who will see your survey, thus including basic demographic questions are a must. Ask for their age, city, and other relevant factual information so that you know you get responses from people in your target market.
For us it was important to assess how the drum of our respondents had experience, so we asked if they considered themselves "professional", "amateur" or "Other if you please specify "(we had a lot of" Semi-pro answers "there). This allowed us to filter and interpret our results.
4. Keep it impersonal
Keep in mind that people in general do not have to complete surveys. So absolutely do not try to plant or sell your product during the investigation. huge deviation. Also, do not ask for personal information that you do not need, such as postal addresses, phone numbers, etc. You will see a much better response rate if you keep the impersonal investigation and focused.
Surveys are a powerful tool for startups, just keep in mind that they should not be the main way that you get your customers' information. So get out of the building and talk to some customers
Go beyond the use case: How to make the most of customer interviews