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Re:More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a f... by pclark on Friday January 16, 2009 @06:46PM (#437493)
this is an awesome presentation - I really recommend anyone that has a product and wants customers read it.

Before I wrote my first line of code for my startup I went and interviewed about 50 regular people. I'd go sit at a train station and grab a guy reading a newspaper, and ask him why he wasn't reading it on his phone.

I'd grab people on the bus or in a queue for groceries on their phone (eg, using it, not talking) and spark up a conversation as to what they're upto.

Most of the time they'd happily give me their phone number after a brief chat, I kept in contact with them all, and rang them once I'd developed my product - quizzed them what I thought and so on.

I have another 100 or so users from Mechanical Turk about my product market that I've been too busy to analyze properly.

Re:More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a f... by phil_KartMe on Friday January 16, 2009 @07:14PM (#437533)
also, here is a podcast by stephen blank that a friend just recommended http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2048
Re:More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a f... by phil_KartMe on Friday January 16, 2009 @07:06PM (#437521)
how did you use mechancial turk with your product? would you recommend i test a consumer web app with it?