Hacker News Reader

Comment by Communitivity | Hacker News Reader

First, kudos for the app! Creating any product and shipping it is a sucess.

That said, I suggest you take a look at http://bestpitchdecks.com/ to see some of the additional information you need in order to make a startup.

Having a MVP is a great start, but if you haven't done customer research, SWOT market analysis, etc. you don't know whether the app you created is a real MVP that can progress you down the road to product-market fit, or a collection of features that you think would be good (and you may be right, but without customer input, you might not be profitably right).

View on HN

> SWOT market analysis

First time I've come across this acronym. Googled it to find SWOT expands to "Strengths, Weaknesses Opportunities, Threats".

Any inexpensive way to do this for an MVP? I'm currently working on shipping my 1st side-project and am very interested in learing more about how I can utilize SWOT approach.

When you say inexpensive, what do you mean? In terms of time or money?

It's inexpensive to do (just use a whiteboard or piece of paper), but can take time to get the data and analyze it without bias. Getting feedback from potential users on the weaknesses & opportunities takes time too.

To reduce this effort, spend 30 minutes to draw up a cursory SWOT and then continue to think about it while in the shower, driving, on the bus, etc. The answers will come to you over time.

Thanks. By inexpensive, I meant in terms of money.

Example:

> Getting feedback from potential users on the weaknesses & opportunities takes time too.

I know there are individual sites that let you poll users, or send them questions or surveys etc. But the good ones cost money. I don't mind paying at all, but wanted to know if there are any good websites / Saas etc that will help do each piece of the SWOT. Or maybe I am overanalyzing this?

P.S. My project is a niche job board. Any ideas how I could try to do the SWOT analysis?

There are sites that let you ask your users questions, and building a mailing list can help you create your list of users.

I think you'll get much more bang for your buck if you talk directly to customers though. With a survey you can only ask the questions you know to ask. The more important questions? They are the ones you don't know yet that you need to ask. You'll find out about those from one-on-one conversations with potential users. Very little beats getting out of the office and talking with potential users face to face.

If you can't do individual user visits then going to a relevant conference and talking to people there can be similar - just be aware that lots of people there are rushed.

Regarding a SWOT how-to... a full thing would be a book, or blog post series, but some tips and URLs follow.

* Strengths and Weaknesses address internal factors.

* Opportunities and Threats address external factors.

* Strengths are things (tangible or intangible) that give you a competitive advantage (e.g., you have an existing business relationship with businesses in the tri-state area).

* Weaknesses are things that might hold you back, hinder your growth, or erode your strengths (e.g., not enough money, not enough technical talent).

* Opportunities are events representing positive shifts in your environment that you could take advantage of (e.g., new technologies, new markets), or areas where your competitors are weak.

* Threats are events representing negative shifts in your environment (e.g., commoditization, a big name like Google entering your niche), or areas where your competitors are strong.

* One technique you can use is to roleplay your competitors. What makes you as them be confident, and what makes you as them be afraid?

* Another technique is to segment your users into personas (fictional user characters that represent with their traits a segment of your user base) and for each use an Ishikawa (aka Fishbone) diagram to do a root cause analysis of what made them choose to buy. Also do the opposite to analyze what could make them pass on buying. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram

http://articles.bplans.co.uk/marketing-a-business/how-to-per...

http://www.leadershipthoughts.com/how-to-use-a-swot-analysis...

Thank you so much for all the info! I really appreciate the help.

The two most important things are:

#1: BE HONEST. This analysis is for you (individual or team) to use for yourselves. It's not a sales tool. Think deeply and honestly: is this truly a strength or something you like? Are you discounting the risk of competitor X?

For example I have benefited from the fact that competitor X was hung up on an existing, legacy market. I have also (at a different company) been screwed by competitor Y recognising that my "product" was really a feature and simply integrating it into their offering.

#2: be clear what you're doing the analysis on: your company or your product. They seem the same when you're a startup but they aren't.

And surveying people adds to the analysis, it is not the primary input.

Thanks a ton for your kind words here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com