First experience of talking to people online
In the previous article, I ended up with the idea validation done with friends, what the following quote can summarize:
After all discussions, I’ve got mostly negative feedback, and maybe, considering that the “mom test” is failed, I had to stop here and do something else. However, my thoughts were about the different question — where to get more people to talk.
There is no idea to validate
When I started talking to my friends, in my mind, I already had a myself-designed full-featured system I wanted to sell.
That’s what I understood retrospectively. Before, I implicitly biased it as a validation process.
Later I realized that I need only to listen rather than sell, as there is nothing to sell yet. The idea I’ve got was only an assumption that certain people do work in a specific domain, and I can help here somehow.
The solution I imagined was way ahead of information about what kind of problems those people have and what they do to solve them. And this number of people from whom information gathered is the first quantitive confirmation of the idea. Additionally, this is the only right way to design the applicable solution and lead to actual customers.
This understanding came to me somewhere in the middle of my first run over online platforms, after I finished talking to friends and before I started making an MVP. Not surprisingly, it dramatically affected results and my impressions about social networks.
It may sound very dumb now, but I had no clue why it’s a bad idea to start connecting with Vice Presidents, CTO, and Co-Founders here. Well, I had a logic that they have the most purchasing power and relevant problems if we are talking about software engineering in 10–50 people companies.
Not surprisingly, even for me at that time, from approximately 200 requests, I’ve got only around ten people connected. Then I moved to Engineering and Product Manager positions. There I’ve got a significantly better response, yet still insufficient as I thought to make many connections first.
However, I quickly realized that I need to figure out what to do even with those willing to talk. That happened after I haven’t found anything better than kick-off the conversation by prompting a list of questions in a chat and later tried to understand why there is no reply received.
After, I’ve done that kind of analysis many times, and many times failed.
The goal was to listen to software engineering problems and how people solve them, and even after improving my conversations, I still had no successful interviews at all.
The main reason for it was that I tried only to chat in a built-in messenger, which has downsides.
First, it takes time to type things, which is less efficient than talking. Second, I needed attention for at least 10 minutes, but people are busy and open LinkedIn to check notifications or make any other short routine. There might be numerous messages incoming when the busy companion returns online — an easy choice to skip unuseful conversation.
What’s the right way?
Ask people for calls.
Targeting of executive and top management positions to arrange a call, even in small companies, may require recommendations or a strong value proposition, so it may be much simpler to focus on engineers or any other individual contributors at the beginning.
Information from the fields
Before I’ve realized that I have an idea to listen and not to sell, I was too skeptical about personal contacts.
I wanted to describe what I’ve designed to as many people as possible and listen to what they say. Nowadays, I would name this intention as a “media coverage” term.
It’s relatively simple to make an advertising campaign when you have money, but it was quite challenging for me to do it at no cost. However, there are still options available.
Startup School
It has a forum where all participants are encouraged to share ideas.
Here I’ve made several posts with questions on software engineering problems and descriptions of what I’m eager to build.
There are thousands of people participating in SUS, but only a few people replied, mainly with some advice on how to build the product itself and what they think about the idea.
Fair enough, if we pay attention to the specifics of this platform.
First, there are many non-technical people. Second, even with a software engineering background, those people focused on building their products, not yours.
Hacker News
The audience here is larger than at a Startup School and covers not only founders but everyone else.
The good and bad part is that anyone can publish here, so the amount of posts is also significantly more extensive than at SUS.
It might be my wrong understanding, but to have attention here, you must be published by someone from Y Combinator, or your subject must be about something related to YC/investments/acquisition.
Product Hunt
For unclear reason, I was too serious about making a product page at PH.
Then I published it, and (long pause) nothing has changed.
The same situation as with HN — to get the attention, you must be either “hunted” by someone famous or included in their weekly mailing list.
The same situation as with SUS — the audience is about making their own products. So even you got your attention, it’s not clear what might be the value.
It has a Software Engineering forum with quite a friendly activity and almost no publishing limitations.
Here, for a short time, I’ve got most of the answers to open questions like how you deal with merge requests or what tools you use for code review.
It still has other posts, so you can’t be on a front page for a long time with such boring questions. And I’m pretty sure that no one will like those questions repeated.
The other downside that once someone replied to you, it’s not a place where discussion can be easily continued. And here reasons I mentioned for LinkedIn chatting apply also, yet you even don’t get a contact.
Thinking about all of this, I realized that talking to a large number of people through media won’t give complete conversations and potential leads.
Stack Overflow
The other place where I tried to seek people and information.
What I quickly found after submitting my first post, they do not allow open questions. E.g., you are not allowed to ask opinions or what people do. You are allowed to ask how to solve a particular problem. And it makes sense.
I also tried to search for relevant questions submitted by other people and found many interesting ones. Like what I mentioned for Reddit, the other downside here — you can not contact or continue the conversation.
I thought this is the platform designed to continue conversations and contact people — what luck, precisely what I haven’t found before.
So I searched for relevant posts here.
However, most of the technical questions asked at a Stack Overflow, so I got noticeably fewer results to examine.
The other difference is that people on Twitter do not expect someone unknown to rush into the conversation under the post. Besides, direct messages seem to be reviewed even less frequently than on LinkedIn. And again, this is not a place where you may get uninterrupted attention and discuss more than 140 symbols in a row.
While online platforms open new opportunities to expand your network and discuss business, there is still a huge dependency on your existing contacts, friends, and recommendations. Your profile, achievements, skills, and your ability to make new friends.
However, even it’s your weakest side, like in my case, it’s still possible to ask people to talk. Just do it right and ask for a call.
And be ready for conversion corresponding to mentioned factors.
In the upcoming article, I’ll tell why I’ve decided to make a full-featured MVP while having no clients and even leads.
Alex Osin
Founder, Codeventory
