I've conducted a small survey to identify a probable market for a problem before started building anything, and it turned out to have mixed results.
Like 55%-45% split.
How do you decide whether a problem is big enough solving?
Like if Uber wanted to launch, what kind of survey would they even put up? Hail a taxi, but it's someone's car and they'll treat you better than a professional? Also it'll be safer than a licensed, regulated taxi.
Gmail: Would you like 1 GB of email storage vs Microsoft's 5 MB? (and it's free, filters spam better, and has a better UI)
Steam: Would you like to buy games for an average 4 times cheaper, and download them fast, legally when you feel like it? The CDs won't scratch and you can own the games on any PC with internet access.
Instagram: Would you like a shareable photo album that is infinitely cheaper than Photobucket with unlimited storage? Oh, it makes you prettier too.
If you can ask questions in a survey, that don't make people suspicious, maybe you're not aiming high enough.
In that case, don't worry about the market - infact, having just a few dozen paying customers who can be fit in 1 to max 3 personas but those that you understand very well, can reach well and get immediate feedback from is very important.
> I've conducted a small survey to identify a probable market for a problem before started building anything, and it turned out to have mixed results.
- How exactly did you conduct the small survey?
- What kind of questions did you ask?
- Did you use a form or conducted 1:1 interviews?
- How did you source the participants?
- What was the motivation of the participants?
> Like 55%-45% split
split of what?
Is your solution a whisper idea? Or can you share it?
The survey was carried out by females in their reproductive age. And via a questionnaire mostly carried out via LinkedIn.
Well the question is not just for this idea but for any idea, how do you know if a problem is big enough to be solved.
And how do to proceed when there are mixed signals when talking to customers.
This is premature optimization. How many datapoints do you have so far?
Did you interview 50-60 of one persona yet?
There is no one answer because the detail completely lies in the specifics, which is why I asked you those questions. You seemed to have missed those questions.
> And how do to proceed when there are mixed signals when talking to customers.
There's no mixed signals. You're uncovering personas.
Each persona outputs a different but unique signal.
Segment them. Then try and resonate with 1 to max 3 personas depending on your mental bandwidth and resource ability.
By the way, how did you learn to do market research first before building a product? You're already ahead of the curve and very likely to be successful than most first time founders I've seen
Where n is the number of instances of the problem, m is price the market will pay for solving an instance and c is the cost of solving it.