Validating your ideas on strangers (2017)

This is a 2017 blog post. It's a throwback to earlier hustle culture writings, before writing like this on LinkedIn became a pop culture meme.

Like most of the hustle culture writing, it's based on a single experience that may or may not have actually happened: The author approached someone in a bar and had a conversation, and now they're preaching this method as some groundbreaking business technique.

Cold approaches like this are not, in my opinion, a good idea if you want valid feedback. When you approach random people in a bar and interrupt them with some request, many people will go into defensive mode where they try to tell you what you want to hear to de-escalate and get you to go away.

Note their reaction:

> Their reaction was notably disturbed!

The author noticed they didn't appreciate his question but pressed on anyway, demanding they give him some feedback. Many people will play along for a few minutes and try to deliver something that fulfills the request and lets them get away from the situation.

That doesn't mean it's good advice. Like most hustle culture writing pieces, I don't think this advice to go to bars and interrupt random people and demand their feedback is a good idea.

I'm sure the patrons at dive bars love businesspeople walking up and asking you to listen to their startup idea or review their designs for a corporate rebranding.

This only works when strangers = target customer because there is no way a stranger would have the understanding of the pain you are relieving for someone when they dont feel that pain. Therefore, it can be better read as "validate your ideas on your target customer" which is kind of obvious.

> private, albeit very loud, conversation

Please don't do what this post says. As someone at a bar I would appreciate you leaving me alone without me having to assert my right to a private conversation.

This is like sending an unsolicited email to someone who might want to buy your product.

A single instance is not a bad thing, but once it becomes a repeated occuance it is terrible.

With this particular case, the threshold is likely to be in expectation. If you approach people and any of them are aware of this concept in advance, they might feel used. If they know what you are going to do before you start talking then the entire atmosphere has already been polluted.

It might be easier to think of it in ecological terms. Sustainability and limiting harms mark the core of what should govern human endeavours. If the bar was considered an ecological environment, the harm would be in negatively impacting the enjoyment of customers. A single query from a stranger might do no harm. It might even enrich their evening experience. Done unsustainably however, results in a progressive reduction in the quality of experience across the ecosystem.

If you try this, be prepared for the bartender to tell you to stop hassling the customers, or to cut straight to the part where they kick you out of the bar.

I went to a bar a few years ago and there was someone set up at a table in the corner with a weird-looking deck of cards and a sign that said, "help me test my game design!" That particular approach worked really well, but I think particularly because playing a game in a bar is fun.

This reminds me of a picture where a guy pitch someone in the restroom :D https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G3WSULNaAAAjE17.jpg

One guy at our company once had this brilliant idea as well. Go to a bar and validate the idea with strangers. After all, our business idea was related to sports and they would surely be interested. I thought this was a great idea. All three of us agreed it was. Later that night, in high spirits, we went to the bar to execute our plan. We sat at the bar for two hours and talked to a grand total of zero people because we were all afraid to approach anyone and bother him or her about our frivolous, idiotic idea.

when he asks you about his new idea for an app, just pretend you didn't hear him. if we all do it, eventually he'll leave

Actually, you can try seeking out your own brutally honest opinion about your own idea. Act like a stingy investor or a totally down-to-earth common man. You should quickly write down the terse half-line questions that your real childish inner self spits out, before they are drowned by the pitch from your refined outer-self.

> Their reaction was notably disturbed! I apologized, saying I had a pitch coming up, and would really like their opinions. Well, they were much more negative toward my idea than I thought they would be!

Because you interrupted their social outing with techbro baggery, including being kinda disingenuous about "a pitch coming up".

> Focus grouping. The only real difference is it is FREE.

A non-consensual focus group, in a venue where people are going partly to get away from biz BS they have to tolerate during the workday.

But if you're going to do it anyway, there is a convention in bars, of offering to buy a person a drink. Especially when it's an ambitious approach. No longer FREE.

A great shortcut to get banned by the bartender because patrons have told them you're harassing and/or soliciting. Bonus points if you try to make your case to the bouncer.

"The Mom Test" book seems to be about this exactly: https://www.momtestbook.com/

It should be made clearer that this is from 2017.

I can only speak from my own experience that both the tech scene and bar scene have changed dramatically.

I think that the author needs to read "The Mom Test".

People would use it for sex.

You might want to limit this to geek-frequented bars in Silicon Valley only, as it is using strangers for your own financial benefits without reimbursing them for their feedback.

Also consider that disclosing your work in public means subsequent attempts to patent anything are toast (unless each stranger signs you an NDA first).