The Lean Start Part 2 - Survey Results

The Results Are In

In my previous post, I wrote about applying the principles of the Lean Startup to the "Problem". I created a survey to see if other people had this Problem too and if they were interested in a solution. You can read more about it here (http://bit.ly/by01DC).

In a poll of 200 users, it turns out that many of them have the same Problem that I do. Furthermore, two thirds of the respondents would use or are likely to use such a solution to this Problem if it was available, with a further ten percent unsure but requesting more information.

This is great news and I have learned it very quickly and cheaply. However, there are some caveats that must be recognized.

1. The group of users are self-selecting. This can introduce bias in a survey, but in an online environment, there is no other way to carry it out. However, for an online service, this will be the way most people will find it.
2. The respondents were inclined to answer in response for a small monetary reward. As a result, the charge may be levelled that they were telling me what I wanted to hear, just to get paid. This one is more difficult to deal with. However, I would imagine that the Amazon Mechanical Turk system would not last long if the responders were constantly doing shoddy work.
3. I may have selected a poor set of questions, or worded them to bias towards the result I wanted.

However, the results are strong enough to proceed with the next iteration of a Minimal Viable Product, a landing page. This iteration will address the issue that there won't be a monetary reward for expressing interest.

In my next post, I'll say a little more about the landing page and the various options I'm using to help potential users discover the service and express interest.

A Little Bit More About The Survey

I split the survey into three parts
Part I - Some basic demographic information
Part II - Description of the Problem
Part III - Description of the Solution

From Part I, I learned the following:

1. The responses were split exactly in two halves, male and female, so were a perfect statistical sample from a gender perspective.
2. Nearly half of the respondents were between 18 and 25 years old, with a further third in the age range 26 to 35.
3. I also asked about use of social networks and a staggering 80% of respondents use Facebook, with Twitter a distant second at 35% (and favoured slightly by men).
4. Nearly half of the respondents do not use their mobile phone for accessing the internet at all. So for an online service, developing a mobile site would still be a secondary concern to a traditional site.

Parts II and III are specific to the Problem and the Solution, so I'll post more information on these aspects later.

As always, I appreciate any comments you may have and would love to hear about your own experiences.