The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future by Chris Guillebeau
Authors: Chris Guillebeau
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what you need to know. All of us are busy, but if you construct a good survey, the response rate can be 50 percent or higher.
Once you’ve moved beyond the basics and have a good idea of what you’re hoping to offer, you can take this process further. I often write to my customer list and ask about specific product ideas, like this:
Here are a few projects I’m thinking about working on during the next few months, but I could be totally wrong. Please let me know what you think of each idea.
Idea 1
Idea 2
Idea 3
etc.
I then apply a simple ranking scale to each idea and ask the respondents to stick with their first impression. The ranking scale usually consists of answers such as “I love it!” “You should do it,” “Sounds interesting,” “Would need to hear more,” and “It’s not for me.”
Generally speaking, it’s good to keep surveys to less than ten questions or so. To get more overall responses, ask fewer questions. To get more detailed responses (but from fewer people), ask more questions. It’s up to you, but make sure that whatever you ask is something you actually need to know about. Pay close attention tothe feedback; it will either confirm your intention to proceed or make you think about restructuring your proposed project.
Either way, the information is valuable, but also remember that the majority opinion isn’t everything. Among other concerns, you’ll need your own motivations for building a project over time. If your motivations are based strictly on the preferences of someone else, you’ll run the risks of boredom, unhappiness, and simply being less purposeful than you could be otherwise. The lesson is to use surveys but use them carefully. Sometimes, deciding not to pursue a promising project or deliberately turning away business is one of the most powerful things you can do. (See “The Customer Is Often Wrong” for a story about that.)
The Customer Is Always Right Often Wrong
It was a big launch day, which meant I was up by 5 a.m., coffee in hand and ready to go. As the new website went live, hundreds of customers were ready and waiting to purchase. I watched the shopping cart fill up and closely monitored the in-box for support issues.
Happily, the launch was successful. By noon, more than a thousand people had purchased, and that number would double by the end of the day. I had sent so many customer thank-you emails that Google briefly shut down my email account, thinking I was a spammer. A friend at the company rescued me by restoring the account, and I went back to plowing through messages. In the in-box were hundreds of notes from excited new customers, as well as dozens of minor support requests: “I lost my password,” “The site is down,” “How can I change my log-in?” and so on.
And then there was Dan. The note from Dan read, “I’d like a refund.” I wrote him back quickly, “No problem, but what’s wrong?”
“Let me give you some free advice,” Dan wrote in a tone that was obviously sarcastic. “Give me a call and I’ll tell you how you lost my business.”
I looked at the shopping cart and the site comments—several orders and dozens of excited messages were coming through every minute—and replied to Dan: “Sorry, I can’t call you. I’ll issue the refund and I wish you well, but I don’t need any advice right now.”
You’ve probably heard the expression “The customer is always right,” but most small business owners quickly discover this is not true. Yes, you want to focus on meeting people’s needs and going above and beyond them whenever you can, but any single customer does not always know what’s best for your whole business. These customers may not be the right ones for your business, and there’s nothing wrong with saying farewell to them so you can focus on serving other people.
I didn’t have time to call Dan on launch day, and perhaps I missed a good opportunity to learn from him. But I’m pretty sure it was
Once you’ve moved beyond the basics and have a good idea of what you’re hoping to offer, you can take this process further. I often write to my customer list and ask about specific product ideas, like this:
Here are a few projects I’m thinking about working on during the next few months, but I could be totally wrong. Please let me know what you think of each idea.
Idea 1
Idea 2
Idea 3
etc.
I then apply a simple ranking scale to each idea and ask the respondents to stick with their first impression. The ranking scale usually consists of answers such as “I love it!” “You should do it,” “Sounds interesting,” “Would need to hear more,” and “It’s not for me.”
Generally speaking, it’s good to keep surveys to less than ten questions or so. To get more overall responses, ask fewer questions. To get more detailed responses (but from fewer people), ask more questions. It’s up to you, but make sure that whatever you ask is something you actually need to know about. Pay close attention tothe feedback; it will either confirm your intention to proceed or make you think about restructuring your proposed project.
Either way, the information is valuable, but also remember that the majority opinion isn’t everything. Among other concerns, you’ll need your own motivations for building a project over time. If your motivations are based strictly on the preferences of someone else, you’ll run the risks of boredom, unhappiness, and simply being less purposeful than you could be otherwise. The lesson is to use surveys but use them carefully. Sometimes, deciding not to pursue a promising project or deliberately turning away business is one of the most powerful things you can do. (See “The Customer Is Often Wrong” for a story about that.)
The Customer Is Always Right Often Wrong
It was a big launch day, which meant I was up by 5 a.m., coffee in hand and ready to go. As the new website went live, hundreds of customers were ready and waiting to purchase. I watched the shopping cart fill up and closely monitored the in-box for support issues.
Happily, the launch was successful. By noon, more than a thousand people had purchased, and that number would double by the end of the day. I had sent so many customer thank-you emails that Google briefly shut down my email account, thinking I was a spammer. A friend at the company rescued me by restoring the account, and I went back to plowing through messages. In the in-box were hundreds of notes from excited new customers, as well as dozens of minor support requests: “I lost my password,” “The site is down,” “How can I change my log-in?” and so on.
And then there was Dan. The note from Dan read, “I’d like a refund.” I wrote him back quickly, “No problem, but what’s wrong?”
“Let me give you some free advice,” Dan wrote in a tone that was obviously sarcastic. “Give me a call and I’ll tell you how you lost my business.”
I looked at the shopping cart and the site comments—several orders and dozens of excited messages were coming through every minute—and replied to Dan: “Sorry, I can’t call you. I’ll issue the refund and I wish you well, but I don’t need any advice right now.”
You’ve probably heard the expression “The customer is always right,” but most small business owners quickly discover this is not true. Yes, you want to focus on meeting people’s needs and going above and beyond them whenever you can, but any single customer does not always know what’s best for your whole business. These customers may not be the right ones for your business, and there’s nothing wrong with saying farewell to them so you can focus on serving other people.
I didn’t have time to call Dan on launch day, and perhaps I missed a good opportunity to learn from him. But I’m pretty sure it was
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