This is a quick post , being written on a train , at 7:52 am on a Saturday.
Yes – I’m on a train to the city before 8 am on a Saturday morning – welcome to the life of an entrepreneur ! Why I’m on the train , is another story for another post …
This post is about a wee bit of testing I did recently for the Network Buddy app and service that I am developing.
There are 2 pieces of advice startups and new business owners with new ideas will hear over and over,
The first , is just do it. Get started. Don’t wait, don’t keep your idea secret and work on it alone, tell everyone and anyone, and get started. Want to know if someone will buy something at a certain price point … sell it to them.
And the second , is to test, test and test some more. Never stop testing assumptions, never stop testing your idea, and never stop testing the advice you get from people.
And to help you understand how you really and truly can do this , on a shoestring budget, for a new idea in it’s infancy – here’s a real world example from the life of Steph ( it’s like the life of Pi but without the amazing CGI, or a tiger. It’s more like the Life of Brian actually…. )
So about 6 weeks ago ( give or take) I decided to take this idea I had for being a Network Buddy / consulting mentor/ networking helper – and turn it into a scalable tech business .
It didn’t just happen by itself, I had several conversations with some amazing women at the Fishburners Female Founders Hackathon in Sydney . And I had several more conversations with lots and lots of people subsequent to that weekend , as I attended every single networking event I could lay my hands on to test the hypothesis.
And here’s how it went.
I put up a website , with a landing page – briefly outlined Network Buddy as a service/app to connect people for the purposes of mentoring/buddying each other at Networking events.Thus far , this has cost me nothing but time, and a small fee for shutterstock. I’m using a free AWS micro instance and a wordpress install with a free launch page template
At the first networking event I went to , I had nothing printed with me, I just talked about the idea,and mentioned the website . I had 8 signups in one night.
I then put up a facebook page – and asked the amazing secret society of awesome women that I belong to ( you know who you are *wink wink*) to give me some feedback on the landing page. They did, and it was good constructive feedback . Some even signed up. The page hasn’t changed much publicly (mostly because the launch page template I used doesn’t lend itself to too much customisation) – but all that awesome feedback has been taken in and will be used for the final release of the website.
Then I attended a networking event which was all about networking. ( duh!) And to that event I took with me pamphlets, which I designed and ran off on my home printer.
Home printed Pamphlets ???
They were not perfect, or professionally printed. But that wasn’t the point. I didn’t have time ( or the budget) to have 1000 pamphlets printed . I need 30. and this is why.
I printed 2 variations of the pamphlet , so only 15 of each …. they looked the same, but had slightly different content …. I placed them on the table at the entrance to the event in 2 piles , right next each other.
At the end of the event , I had 3 left of option A , and 14 left pf option B . A very definitive result for my test.
Option A – all about finding a Network Buddy, being too shy to introduce yourself , and not knowing where or how to effectively network at an event.
Option B – All about becoming a mentor and the Network Buddy – helping other people to find their feet , and raise money for the charity of your choice at the same time.
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| Option B at the top – lots of leftovers Option A underneath – only 3 left … much more effective |
My theory going in, was that at that specific event, I would likely find a lot of people looking for help and feeling unsure , and probably not more than 1 or 2 Buddy Mentor people.
Knowing this – I have tailored the actual content and design of the brochure to speak to people who need help, and will be sending it off to a graphic designer imminently for that professional touch.
I just received my first batch of 50 business cards — and have commenced dishing them out to test reactions to the design …. watch out for the results of that test in future posts.
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| The test cards … (ps I do love them myself) |
So – there you have it – for the cost of 30 sheets of A4 paper , printed on a home printer – I established very firmly what type of content and style I needed for my brochure , and I also established a very firm need for the idea as well.
Test, test and test some more — just do things – don’t wait until you have the perfect design or the perfect budget. People will not be able to tell you about something that they cannot see , so if you need to know which content works better, or which image works better , print up something and hand it to people, and watch their reactions . Far more accurate than asking them outright what they prefer or think about your idea or how you should market it.
Rocking Rose over and out for another day of hustling.