Comment by MaknMoreGtnLess | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MaknMoreGtnLess | Hacker News Reader

MaknMoreGtnLess

While I am happy to go into TAM and related metrics, I am assuming this is your first successful startup.

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?

Well it's not a ground breaking idea of any sort, it's about providing support for female reproductive health issues. Where I'm coming from female reproductive issues are considered too sensitive to talk in public and sometimes females find it difficult to talk with even with their doctors.

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.

> 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.

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com