Our company's path
At our edtech company, we've come to this over time. When you create a business and think that your idea is unique and will be bought by default, then I assure you that you are mistaken. You see the idea from the other side that the consumer does not see. This means that you are in different situations and do not quite look at everything under one prism. Testing ideas is just as important as creating them.
At the very beginning of the journey, we created everything with our own hands (website, creatives, educational programs) and, accordingly, believed that we were doing everything right. When it came time to sell, we realized that no one except us understands the value of this product and people do not run to us to enroll their children. Although we were sure that it is extremely useful and interesting for the consumer, and most importantly, it solves the pain of modern parents.
After the first immersion in marketing, market research methods, and then in product management, I realized that you always need to be in constant contact with the audience. You need to know what purpose they are pursuing or what problem they are solving when buying your product. After the release of the product, communication with consumers does not end. Moreover, on the contrary, it should increase, since the words of users about the product make it possible to quickly collect feedback and refine the product, and this is a continuous process!
How do we test ideas?
Before developing any product, we always test demand / opinion using social media. networks and traffic to a landing page dedicated to a new product being developed. By receiving comments or leads, you can test a hypothesis about whether there is a hot demand for a product. Then, among potential customers who left applications / comments, we conduct CustDev research, which helps us to understand the client's motivation, desires, expectations and pains.
To conduct a high-quality CustDev research, it is necessary to think over a scenario, outline the procedure for conducting, basic rules, duration and, of course, questions. Typically, this is done by a marketing person, a development team leader, or a sales director. Questions should imply an open answer that includes an explanation of a choice / opinion / idea.
A little about CustDev itself
As a rule, we select 8 people for interviews, since fewer people will not represent a representative sample.
The team member responsible for conducting the interview writes down the main idea in Google tables, and then we listen to each conversation a number of times so as not to miss the main idea when answering a particular question. Important! We write down customer responses word for word. We try not to change the wording. After writing down all the answers, we begin to study words, meanings, and so on. It is very important to know what the client wants and what words they are using. We call this qualitative research.
After qualitative research, we move on to quantitative research. After digging a lot in the answers of the respondents, we identify the main patterns and insights. Then we choose the basic formulations and try to test them on more people. For example, we ask closed-ended questions and check if the story is valid at scale. For this we use Yandex.Vzgyad.
It is important to note that the completed CustDev study is a klondike for many departments / divisions within the company. For example, we prepare a presentation of the results of CustDev and send it out to different departments. If we understand that there are moments that need 100% attention, then we directly meet with the team members and say what needs to be tested.
Guide to CustDev from our experience
- Don't ask about the future. Almost 100% that it will not come true.
- Never sell a product / service during an interview. If a person feels that you are trying to sell him something, then you can forget about valuable answers.
- Ask "Why?" The answer "yes" or "no" will not allow you to dive into the problematic.
- Ask again and summarize everything said. For example, "Did I understand correctly that ....?"
In general, CustDev research is very cool. We get a lot of ideas from one study that are applicable in different directions. For example, very often in development and marketing.