Better Product Managers, and Product Management

Wait Until Your Idea Makes Sense, Then Start Targeting

Date: Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Talking with your target market is critical to finding product-market fit. (In case anyone thought my earlier post Anybody, As Long As It’s Not You implied otherwise).

But I’ve heard “target market” thrown around far too often around as an excuse for why other people didn’t understand your idea.  (“Well, of course he didn’t understand my online raccoon manicure product – he’s not a raccoon groomer!”)

But in general, ANYBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO ‘GET’ YOUR IDEA.   If they don’t, it’s either a bad idea or you’re expressing it badly, and the sooner you realize that, the better.

Don’t ask “would you use it?”, ask “do you get it?”

As SOON as you have an idea or a very early mockup, show it to people.  Doesn’t matter who.  If they ‘get it’, THEN invest the time in building out more of an MVP, and at that point, definitely call in your target market.

Recently I was talking with some other entrepreneurs about a company that prints out physical wall calendars already-marked with all the birthdays from your Facebook account.  We all said, “I probably wouldn’t buy it” but we all UNDERSTOOD WHAT IT WAS, and that there was an audience (my teenage niece) who would probably find it a lot cooler than we did.

Start Fast and Cheap, then Target

Finding target market people takes time.  I can find a fellow product manager/startup person to give me feedback within hours.

It might take a day to find a targeted person – for a new entrepreneur who doesn’t have a big network yet, it might take a week.  That’s too long to wait for this very early feedback.

Asking target market people for their feedback burns some social capital.   I can easily ask a favor from a fellow product manager/startup person because I know they could probably use my help at some point in the near future.  I also know they’ll be both patient and merciless if I do a bad job explaining my idea.

If I have a target market person who is NOT my friend, and ask them for feedback, it’s a lot harder to ask again later.  If I do a bad job explaining my idea, they may incorrectly conclude that it doesn’t meet their needs.  Or it may just not trigger the feedback you need — most people are not able to articulate their needs straight-out.  It’s only when they hear an idea or see a sketch that they get in the right mindset to talk about their problems (you know, those things that you are trying to solve.)

So once your idea has gotten some rudimentary validation, target away!   Just don’t let targeting stand in the way of getting feedback EARLY EARLY EARLY.  Let dumb/impractical/incomprehensible/poorly articulated product ideas die a quick and painless death!

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  • I call this the grandmother test. If you have an idea you need to be able to explain it to your grandmother (or anyone's grandmother). I was once working on a new startup idea where we struggled for months presenting/tweaking what the offering was but we could never get it to a point of hyper clarity so we abandoned the idea. Part of it was that we were ahead of the market (the market didn't exist) but thats not an excuse - the initial validation with anyone is definitely important.
  • Cindy, one challenge that we are facing now is that we are surrounded by family and friends who "get" it because they "get" us personally, and our extended social network, which for the most part shares our technical background, so they are potential competition for building the same product. I know there is no size fits all solution, but perhaps you can share some insights about getting feedback without revealing too much. I suspect that I am more paranoid than I really need to be, but still.
  • yes, I see your point on the need to prioritize the message. It's like coaching in a sport -- you don't flood your player with 10 things they are doing wrong, you start with one.

    The other thing I was thinking about this morning is that I do very much agree with the notion of talking to anyone you can. You might weight responses differently, but it's so useful and cool to learn from many people's reactions and confusions.
  • So I'm struggling with this one Cindy. I understand the gist, but come at it from another perspective. For example, if you want to design something for teens, the way you bullshit-test your idea is to talk to a teen. You shouldn't have to burn much social capital to do that, and you should learn how to explain it to teens by talking to them, not a peer. Silicon Valley gets accused, and often rightfully so, of bubble thinking, and so unless you truly are designing a product for yourself and people like you, you need to go out of your way to get real reactions from real people.

    My other challenge is that when you have an idea, it's often effective to start a conversation not by asking about your idea, but by asking open ended questions about the problems people have in the space you are trying to address -- you can discover interesting things and prioritize your thinking and evolve your idea more effectively with that kind of conversation rather than just a presentation of an idea.

    I also don't think you build an MVP before talking to target market -- not unless you're talking about a weekend project. Before wasting a lot of dev time, bullshit check your idea with the people you think you are either solving a problem for, or delighting with an experience. I worry that any other approach puts too much stress on the idea and the features, rather than focusing the entrepreneur on the problem and the solution.
  • Cindy
    I don't disagree - but the gap between "should" and "actually do" that I see is SO huge (and NOT just with small startups, and NOT just with Silicon Valley companies) that I think you've gotta start somewhere.

    To me it's kind of like people trying to lose weight - yeah, there are dozens of life changes that they SHOULD make to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but it feels so overwhelming that they're more likely to do nothing. I'd rather just say "take the stairs" and hope that more people will do that and say, "okay, now what?"

  • RT @cindyalvarez: Don’t ask “would you use it?” ask “do you get it?” & “let dumb ideas die quick&painless death” http://bit.ly/cND0kg #l …


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • RT @cindyalvarez: Response to @giffconstable – I love targeting! but there’s a lot that can/shd be killed/improved before you get there http://bit.ly/cND0kg


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • RT @cindyalvarez: Don’t ask “would you use it?” ask “do you get it?” & “let dumb ideas die quick&painless death” http://bit.ly/cND0kg #leanstartup


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

  • Response to @giffconstable – I love targeting! but there’s a lot that can/shd be killed/improved before you get there http://bit.ly/cND0kg


    This comment was originally posted on Twitter

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