On different stages of the app development there are different questions that are best asked.
A good practice is to separate the questions into 3 stages: idea, working prototype and finished application
1. Idea
At the idea stage, you need to find people interested in your application and interview them.
First, interview your friends and loved ones. They are in your direct access.
Second, visit your potential users. You don’t have to make formal appointments. The less formal your communication, the better. In a friendly conversation format, people will be more willing to share information and their real opinions.
Third, attend specialized conferences. You can act there both as a participant and as an ordinary guest.
There you can meet not only your competitors and like-minded people, but in an informal setting you will meet a huge number of interested potential users who are waiting for you to find them and tell about your idea.
Some tips for the interviewer:
– Be down to earth. The simpler and easier you are in communication, the more sincere the answers of your interviewees will be.
– Take notes. Record the answers and interesting thoughts of the respondents in a notebook or on your device. Then it will be easier for you to organize the data.
– Appreciate the time of the people you are interviewing. Don’t be annoying. If you feel that a person is starting to tense up and you are tired of him, thank him politely for his answers and say goodbye to leave at the peak.
2. Working prototype
By answering these 3 questions, you can clearly understand which company is your “ideal user”.
1. How much does it cost them to solve this problem right now?
How much money your application will help to save for your potential client, or how much profit your service can bring them.
2. How often do they have this problem?
If they have a problem on a regular basis, then they definitely feel pain and need to solve it. They will need your service.
3. What is their budget?
You need to understand if they already have a budget that can be allocated to solve this problem. It is important that solving the problem using your application is cheaper than they are spending at this stage.
3. Finished application
You just need to ask your user one simple question and give them answer options.
“How upset you will be if our application is taken away from you:
A) very much.
B) I’ll be a little upset.
C) I will not be upset at all. ”
If the percentage of the answer “A” is more than 40, then you are doing everything right, and your application will continue to grow and develop further. Your application is more attractive to users than any other possible solution to their problem.
Polling tricks at this stage:
1. Collect phone numbers of your users during registration.
You don’t need to call everyone, call several users and interview them. After analyzing several point answers from completely different users, you can already come from the private to the general.
2. Don’t ask people what they want directly. Find out with the right questions.
Offer your users a new additional service feature. For example, the first month of using a new feature is free. So you can visually track how much your innovation will be in demand.
3. Consider only qualitative data.
Compliments from users will definitely delight you and bring joy and pleasure, but if there is no specifics there, do not take them into account. Consider answers that specifically tell you what, how, and why.
The article is based on the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT4Ig2uqjTc. Speaker Eric Mijikowski is a partner at Y Combinator and founder of Pebble Technology.
