Build & Test Your Idea Without Programming

Elizabeth Yinco-founder of LaunchBit

Lean Startup ChallengeJuly 15, 2011

Agenda

Introduction Interviewing customers Wizard-of-Oz prototypes Q & A

In high school, we decided to become internet entrepreneurs

Shiny Orb is a social shopping site for wedding apparel

DressMob is a social shopping site for all dresses

The first step is to achieve product/market fit

Maximize Profit

Product/Market Fit Scale Up

Progress happens in parallel

Collect landing page signups

Wizard-of-Oz your prototype

Talk with customers

Talk with customers

Talk with customers

Talk to a range of customers… not your mom!

?

Post an ad on Craigslist to find local people willing to help you

http://www.craigslist.org

http://www.surveymonkey.com http://docs.google.com

Cindy Alvarez

http://www.slideshare.net/cindyalvarez/user-testing-tactics

Start by asking questions to help you understand user behavior

What are the most frustrating aspects of ABC?

If you had a magic wand to help you with ABC, what would it do?

What is the process you go through today to do ABC?

How much would you expect this magic wand to cost?

May I ask you why ABC is frustrating?

In subsequent interviews, present your solution for feedback

Would you use it?

How much would you expect this to cost, if anything?

Do you have any friends whom you think could

benefit from this?

We’d love to learn from your friend, mind making an intro?

So, you said ZYX of ABC was frustrating, what if the product

looked like this?

Ask about behavior and bring a simple set of “paper” prototypes

Do people “get” your idea?

Image credit: Simon Collison (flickr)

Image Credit: Mathieu Brault

Hanging around coffee shops helps Pulse refine their new ideas

Collect signups with a simple landing page

Make sure your messaging is clear and there is a call to action

Your Minimum Viable Product should have just 1 or 2 functions

Can you explain your product in 1 sentence?

Image Credit: Hammacher Schlemmer

Aardvark went to see the wonderful Wizard of Oz

Food on the Table started with real, live “concierge” service

The Wed Connect is our own experience at quick idea testing

Online tools made it possible to work behind the curtain

Image Credit: Wizard of Oz

Get your first users:5 – 50 customers

Image Credit: Wizard of Oz

Find out what your users are doing on your website

There are many affordable tools for quantitative & qualitative analysis

In 5 days, we had numbers to evaluate The Wed Connect

Quick math: Charge wedding vendors $2 / lead * 21 leads = $42 Costs: $0.44 * 68 people = $29.92 Potential profit: $0.58 / person

Bounce Rates

87% of 68 people

56% of 16 people

21 Signups

Qualitative feedback taught us about the customer

We determined the viability of The Wed Connect in just 1 week

Great initial numbers but a frustrating business

0 1 2 7 8

1 day Customer Research

1 day Build MVP

5 days Testing and Marketing

1 day Analysis

LaunchBit Startup Guide helps new entrepreneurs launch ideas

Build and test your idea without programming – Get going!

More questions? hello@launchbit.com Blog: blog.launchbit.com @launchbit www.launchbit.com