Testing ideas with strangers

Situating yourself amidst strangers interested in your idea

Where do people do what you want to help them do better? Where do they think about it? This is where you want to hang out. This could be a food court where everyone is on smartphone apps or their laptop killing time. Many could be interested in finding more interesting things to do. If your idea would help a business perform better, a spot where the people you would have to make happy could be a trade show where most people share an interest in certain products. On-line special interest groups work for testing digitally delivered services, but you must be careful because you cannot know anyone’s true identities, so potential competitors could be lurking as they search for new ideas.

How to observe

Before you ask someone for help or advice you want to discretely observe them and take notes! Note the time, location and a description of the person. Also note what they are doing. Are they with others? who do you think they are? What do they seem to be talking about? Why do you think they are there? If you are online you can screen shot conversations that lead up to you asking your questions or when getting reactions to something you posted.

Now note how you think they are feeling? For example, are they happy, frustrated or relaxed? Finally write down how you think you could strike up a conversation with them on some common subject with some connection to your idea.

How to approach strangers by asking them to help you

Situated in the midst of potential customers, you can easily approach a stranger you’ve observed, particularly if they are in the process of doing what you think your idea could help them do better. “I couldn’t help but notice that you just finished doing…” For example, they could be buying a drill or using ChatGPT to make funny posters. Continue, “could I ask for your help because I’m a bit confused. How would you suggest I could … ? And here you insert what activity you think could be done better. You are not yet asking for a person’s opinion about your idea, you are asking them to explain how they go about choosing which drill to buy or how they use AI to design a poster. Many people feel comfortable giving advice or help.

How to interview them … but not about your idea

Your objective is NOT to ask a stranger about what they think about your idea! Your objective is to learn what the stranger you’ve engaged does when he or she encounters a situation where your product or service could be used. This is important information because this stranger is describing where and under what conditions your idea has to make them happier. To do that you have to understand how normally happy they are when doing what you think you could do better.

Do NOT ask closed ended questions, such as, “Do you think …?” Strangers can find that aggressive and it could make them want to end the session.

Ask only open-ended questions that start with: who, what, when, where and how. The answers you get will often be long-winded and frustrating. They may not naturally lead to hearing anything related to your idea. In that case the conversation is telling you that this person is not frustrated with what your idea is seeking to make better. As an ending to the conversation you can finally probe, “I am searching for a way to … and insert here the problem your idea solves … for example, design posters. Then you can follow up with, “what ideas do you have on how make this activity faster, better … more fun … or more useful?

If you have a great conversation, you might be able to ask the person how you could contact them to get more of their advice or help as you implement what they have described or suggested. This could be a useful contact later on as you refine your idea.

As soon as you finish an interview, move on and find a quiet place to write down where and when the interview took place and a description of the person. You also want to note any quotes that you remember, even if they do not immediately relate to your idea. Quotes are golden because if you remember something from the interview that means it was for some reason important to you. You may not realize why in the moment, but if you write down the quote, its importance will come to you later. Then summarize what you think are the points the person made—OR DID NOT MAKE—about your idea.

And then go do another interview.

How many interviews do you need?

How many interviews you need to do depends on the market you are going after and how diverse are the opinions you get relative to what will make potential customers happier.

As an example of how to think this through, if you have an idea that appeals to golfers, there are many types of golfers: professionals, serious amateurs, recreational golfers, young ones that are learning, old ones, women golfers, Japanese golfers… You get the point. To do a thorough job and get an approximate sense of what would make “golfers” happy, you would have to interview around 2 dozen golfers from each of these subgroups.

If you are testing out an idea for an on-line app that designs posters and could be used by thousands of people from far off places, you’ll need to engage at least 200 people from at least 20 very different places or backgrounds. Anything less and you will only hear a few very narrow and regional perspectives on the potential value of your idea.

If you want to test how your product or service will be received by a very narrow group of potential customers, like varsity university lacrosse players, then a couple of players from each of a dozen teams, or around two dozen players could be good enough, provided you hear similar desires across the various teams.

With B2B or “B to Government” businesses, there may be only a handful of potential customer institutions interested in what you think you can offer. For these types of business you need to be able to interview people that know how purchasing decisions are made and then talk with the key people that participate in making the final decision on whether the organization will use your product.

What you are looking for is whether your idea will get the decision-maker promoted, or a get her a big bonus, or some other improvement in their status. You want to understand how the people associated with bringing your product or service idea to the attention of the final decision-will be happier by doing so.

Finally, you want to talk to workers that will potentially use your idea and find out if it will make their jobs easier, more pleasant, or less stressful?

You will need to interview several different institutions because they will not all use what you have to offer in the exact same ways and the actually users of your service could be located in different places within different cultures. The number of interviews you need to do to assess the demand for a B2B or B2G product or service could easily exceed 100 people if these are large organizations like municipal governments or multi-billion dollar corporations, but could be as little as 30 people if the institutions are small and local, like non-chain restaurants or insurance brokers.

How to organize the info you collect

This information is golden. The better you understand customers, the more your idea can make them happy. These customer insights translate directly into competitive advantage.

When you get back home you want to write down any themes or similarities in what you heard—or didn’t hear. Reread your notes and see what other themes pop out. Now go out and interview some more people.

If you are finding that people are happy with how they do the things you want them to do differently, then you need to rethink or reposition your idea. If you do not find any similarities in what will make potential customers super happy, then you also need to question your idea or adjust it to excite some other group of potential customers.

Don’t feel bad, this is what usually happens.