I launched a small business called http://GeekRations.com and got a paying customer in a weekend. Full disclosure, that was my only customer. I'm still learning and likewise I'm not completely sure how to go about finding my next one. This was still a huge milestone for me this year. A paying customer. That was my goal.
You'll see a lot of parallels to The Lean Startup in this and that's totally cool. I'm not, however, trying to adhere to some methodology. Experience has taught me that that's the Wrong Thing. The zen I've been able to pick out of The Lean Startup and Customer Development is really just that a solid business model is testable. It's not a black art. There's no reason or excuse to go months building a product or service without talking to potential customers. For developers, you think these ideas are just for pointy-haired business people? I bet you've tried to start your own OSS project and garner some community support but couldn't. This shit applies to you too. We all care if our work is valuable, and we all want to know ASAP if it isn't so we don't waste our time.
Let's learn what we need to learn and iterate. Let's admit that no one cares and ask them what they do care about. Let's expect customers to buy now and when they don't let's ask them why.
Here's what I did:
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(Friday Night) Picked a market- I'm a programmer and a geek. All of my friends are. I have 400+ followers on Twitter who are as well. I also spend time on HackerNews which is mainly geeks. - (Friday Night) Gauged interest- I put up the most cheesy generic Unbounce landing page possible. A couple sentences about my idea and split tested two pages. I wanted to know if my sense of humor would prevent people from signing up. It didn't. I announced it to every geeky community I am a part of. I had about a 5% conversion rate.
- (Saturday) Built a single page website w/ 3 price points- I can design if I try **REALLY** hard... Fuck that. I hit http://themeforest.net/ like a baws. Grabbed a template I could use. It was a bit too feminine for me but I thought fuck it we'll see if it works. Next I got a PayPal pay now button and then threw it all onto Heroku to be hosted for free. Also added Facebook and Twitter buttons so I could have some idea as to whether or not people were excited by the idea.
- (Sunday) Visitor Feedback- I began to see tweets from several people that they didn't really understand what the random gifts might be. They had no idea what they were getting into. In response to this I added a thin strip of images of things I could see myself sending to customers.
- (Sunday Night) Purchase of mid-price point.
One issue I have heard since then is that my product is more of a luxury item and a lot of the people who really like this idea don't have the money to spend so frivolously. A possible pivot might be to sell something like this to girlfriends who don't know what to give to their geeky boyfriends. Not sure though. I have a couple little businesses and next year's goals will require me to focus intently on one of them. I'm trying to understand which has the most likelihood of succeeding and being something I enjoy being immersed in.
Any advice (from experience) or other thoughts? Leave a comment and let's start a conversation.