Once upon a time, there was a Product Manager I have a killer product idea! It will be the “most awesomest” product out there. It will have this cool feature and this shiny interface, and blockchain, and and a gravity gun, and blackjack, and... you know... AI, Should my team go build it? Or should I first test if someone cares enough to buy it? The case for demand validation Ok, the books say I must validate the demand first, so let's be the diligent Senior Product Managers we should be and test if people want it before we build it. We need to make sure that: there is a real pain in the market that my cool product is a solution to. the market is aware of the pain and cares enough to solve it. my cool product can solve that pain point. my cool product is a substantially better solution than the alternatives in the eyes of the market. I can communicate the value of my cool product in such a way as to motivate the market to choose it over the alternatives. with my intended pricing it will be competitive and attractive. Oof, that's a lot of work! I'd rather just go build it, but fine. Techniques for demand validation What options for demand testing techniques do I have? Well, there are and methods, and . qualitative quantitative I need both method is relatively straightforward - I just need to interview enough people from the target market to dig into their jobs to be done, struggles, and needs. They can also tell me about the they currently use to get their jobs done. The qualitative alternative solutions method, on the other hand, is a bit tricky. I can always do a landing page test, but there are a few challenges with it: The quantitative Driving traffic to such a page is , especially in a competitive market. difficult and expensive It's as much of a test for my ad, as it is for my product, and , considering its small size, is quite difficult and is a distraction. getting the ad right But most importantly - I won't know how my solution can be compared to the available alternatives. There is for the results I will get. no benchmark I have an idea though... The listicles (list articles) You know these "Top N something something" kind of articles? Like: 5 best GPS vehicle trackers The 14 hair growth products that actually work Top 10 Best CRM Software Tools in 2023 They are often referred to as " " - articles presented in the form of a list. listicles They basically help you of possible solutions to a problem and present you with the best solutions to choose from. They also aim to offer , rather than giving you a sales pitch designed to overstate benefits and downplay the drawbacks. bypass doing your own research objective impartial analysis I love them - they make picking a new phone, a movie to watch, and an app to install much easier. I also use them at work all the time while looking for solutions to everyday challenges. So what if we use one of them to ? benchmark our product against the best available alternatives Plan of action Ok, here's my plan: I will available to solve the pain point my cool product is designed to solve. research alternatives I will , where my cool product is one of those solutions. write a "Top 5 solutions to {pain X}" article I will make sure my article is an . I will not overstate my cool product's benefits and downplay its drawbacks. I will also be equally honest about the alternatives. objective impartial analysis I will to the benefits I think my audience cares about the most, like price, ease of use, feature set and documentation. compare all solutions I will host this article on a (not on my product's website) but make sure I have access to the analytics. neutral domain I will this article using ads. It should be way easier and cheaper than promoting a specific solution as people generally don't like being sold to. promote I will - what they do once on the page, which links they click, and which text they select. I might even do screen recordings of their actions (like HotJar) to understand how they behave on the page. track the visitor behavior I will it is to to this page. If people don't click it, it might mean that the pain point I am solving is not that important to my target market. test how easy drive traffic I will my solution is . test how popular compared to the alternatives I will on my value proposition until I am happy with how often users pick my solution. iterate Disciplining your thinking I already see the benefits of disciplining my thinking just from writing this article. It forces me to clearly I am solving. understand the problem I have to to the problem. research the best available solutions I have no choice other than to think about very early. differentiation Possible outcomes Once I have this listicle up and getting traffic, here are possible outcomes: It is possible I to the page. Since my market is established and not super-niche, that must mean that the market doesn't care enough about the problem. won't be able to drive significant traffic Most obviously, over mine. I pretty much expect that in the first iteration. From this point, I can A/B test various versions of my product's value prop to get a good performance. visitors can prefer the alternatives I can get to a point where I have a good number of visitors and a for my cool product This will give me the confidence to build the product and expect demand for it. good conversion rate compared to the alternatives. Summary I believe have a huge potential for testing demand hypotheses. listicles Writing one can , forcing you to think through the problem, alternative solutions, and differentiation at an early stage. discipline your thinking They are easier to promote, making demand validation more accessible. They by showing you early if people don't care enough to read it. validate the problem They give you a of your value proposition . benchmark against the best alternatives Have you tried using listicles for your demand validation? If so - let us know in the comments how this worked for you. Also published here.

TRIZ: The Problem-Solving Methodology for Product Managers

Read My Stories

Too Long; Didn't Read

Boost your HackerNoon story @ $159.99! 🚀

Listicles – a Simple but Effective Technique for Demand Validation

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

Untitled Story

TRIZ: The Problem-Solving Methodology for Product Managers

10 Great Articles On Data Science And Programming!

10 FinTech Trends in 2021 [Part II]

10 Financial Predictions for 2021 to Protect Your Wealth

13 API Metrics That Every Platform Team Should be Tracking

TRIZ: The Problem-Solving Methodology for Product Managers

10 Great Articles On Data Science And Programming!

10 FinTech Trends in 2021 [Part II]

10 Financial Predictions for 2021 to Protect Your Wealth

13 API Metrics That Every Platform Team Should be Tracking

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps