4 builders who never spoke to each other

Ask the forum before you ask your friends

Take the question to the places your buyers already gather, open by admitting you hit the problem yourself, and ask what they actually did about it rather than floating your idea. Post in several communities at once because most new accounts sink without trace, and discount answers from anybody who turns out not to be in your market.

The method

1. 01

   Start validation by brainstorming a concrete list of venues where each of your customer types already congregates, then work down it one venue at a time.

2. 02

   Assume most community posts you make as a brand-new account will never reach an audience, so try several communities in parallel instead of betting on one.

3. 03

   Open a research post by disclosing that you personally hit the problem, so readers see a member of their group rather than a marketer.

4. 04

   Ask people what they actually did about the problem and whether it hurt, and only then mention that you are considering building something.

5. 05

   Before counting a positive response, check whether the responder is even in your market; enthusiasm from people outside it is noise.

What it returned

• For a wedding place card product Zue listed wedding forums, wedding blogs, Etsy, Pinterest and local bridal shops, and began with the three largest forums.

• Of three wedding forums, one held his post in a moderation queue permanently, a second closed the thread after his second comment, and only the third ran clean and produced three people saying they would pay.

• Zue's forum post led with the fact that he was a groom married the previous July and that his own seating cards were a last-minute scramble.

• His post asked whether others had the same problem, how they made their cards, whether a planner handled it, and whether it was stressful, before floating the service idea in the final line.

Sources

• Take control over your smartphone usage with Unpluq - Ness LabsJorn Rigter · nesslabs.com · Take control over your smartphone usage with Jorn Rigter, co-founder of Unpluq · 2021-11-18
• Johannes Radig — Traveling the World and Raising Prices – The Bootstrapped FounderJohannes Radig · thebootstrappedfounder.com · 2024-03-27
• Validating an Idea is HardCory Zue · coryzue.com · Finding People · 2017-05-12
• Validating an Idea is Hard: Part 2Cory Zue · coryzue.com · Problem 1: You Can’t Trust Anyone · 2017-05-29
• A Juicy $3,000 Mistake: Starting Without Market ValidationWit Sumathavanit · failory.com · If you had the chance to start over, what would you do differently? · undated