Both
Kickstart01 · week two · Monday
Testing your solution
Put your prototype or MVP in front of users. Find out whether it delivers value and decide what to improve.
With Alexandru Daicu and Aleodor Tabarcea.
Aleodor
What the two hours are for
You leave tonight with a test you can actually run.
One page. A real person's name on it. A time the two of you have agreed.
Not a reading list.
Aleodor
And then on Friday
Friday, we read what happened.
Not what you hoped would happen. Not the version with the ending tidied up. What happened.
Both
Two of us, because there are two kinds of product on this call
Alexandru Daicu
Product engineer, and a product manager before that.
Mostly B2C. Products where you can put a prototype in front of fifty strangers by Thursday.
Aleodor Tabarcea
Engineering manager, Site Lead at Stripe.
Mostly B2B and enterprise. Products where five users may be all the users there are, and one of them signs the contract.
Some of you can recruit fifty people this week. Some of you will fight for three. We will keep saying which advice is which.
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Who is covering what
Monday is preparation, Friday is evidence, and the four days in the middle are the only part of this week we are not in the room for.
Alexandru
Part one
Before the method, the posture
Alexandru
The habit the whole thing rests on
Curiosity over certainty.
You believe in your thing. You have to, or you would not be here on a Monday night.
That same belief is the most expensive thing on this call.
Alexandru
A demo and a test are not the same meeting
A demo
You talk, they nod.
You explain it the moment they hesitate.
You leave feeling good.
A test
They talk, you write.
You watch them hesitate and you say nothing.
You leave with a list you did not want.
Both are useful meetings. Only one of them can surprise you.
Alexandru
The reality check
Your mother would use it.
She would. She would also use a brick, if you built it and sounded excited.
Everybody who likes you will tell you it is good, and not one of them is lying to you.
Alexandru
Our example, across both sessions
Meet Tandem
You say what you are building and what you are missing. It suggests three people a week. You message them.
Tandem does not exist, which is the point. Nobody here has to defend it, so everybody gets to be honest about it.
Alexandru
Two questions, not one
Does this matter to them, and can they work it?
Two questions. Different evidence, different fixes.
Almost everyone only ever tests the second one.
Alexandru
The corner you fear is not the one that hurts
Nobody is afraid of shipping something ugly. Everybody should be afraid of shipping something nobody asked for, beautifully.
Alexandru
What we fill in today
One page, seven boxes
- Who you are testing with, and how you would recognise them.
- What they do today instead of using your thing.
- The value question. Does this matter to them?
- The usability question. Can they work it?
- The task you will give them.
- What you will say when they get stuck, and what you will not.
- The plan. Who, how many, when, where.
The back of the sheet is for what happens while you are testing. That side you bring on Friday.
Alexandru
Box one
Who you are testing with
Alexandru
Who is in the chair?
Everything downstream depends on that one person. Pick the wrong one and you come back on Friday with findings that are detailed, confident and completely worthless.
Alexandru
Describe them by what they have done, not by who they are
What teams write
Aspiring founders, 22 to 35.
Ambitious, early career, tech-savvy.
People who want to start a company.
What you can actually recruit
Has looked for a co-founder in the last three months.
Has had at least one conversation about it that went nowhere.
Is building something now, not someday.
The left column describes a mood. The right one is an instruction you can act on this afternoon.
Alexandru
The reality check
Anyone but the people on this call.
They are the easiest twenty minutes you will ever book, and the least useful ones.
Rehearse on us. Do not count us.
Alexandru
Field sheet, box one
Write who you are testing with
- One sentence. Behaviour only.
- Something they have done, with a time window on it.
- No ages, no adjectives, no "tech-savvy".
If you could not use your sentence to find somebody by Wednesday, it is not finished.
Aleodor
Box two
What they do today instead
Aleodor
Nobody is sitting around waiting for your app.
They are already solving this. Badly, in a spreadsheet, by asking the one person they trust, or by quietly giving up on it.
That is your competition. A spreadsheet and a friend.
Aleodor
Tandem, before Tandem exists
What they do now
Ask the two people they already trust.
Post in a community and wait.
Go to events and hope.
Give up and build alone.
What each one costs them
Trust is high, choice is almost zero.
Free, slow, and mostly silence.
A month of evenings for three conversations.
Nothing, except the company they did not start.
Every one of those is a competitor, including the last one.
Aleodor
The reality check
And if they do nothing at all?
Sometimes an empty space is an opportunity. More often it is just an empty space.
Aleodor
Field sheet, box two
Write what they do today instead
- The workaround, in one line.
- What it costs them: time, money, or something they gave up.
- How you will check that in the test, instead of assuming it.
If the honest answer is "nothing", write that. It is the most useful line on your page.
Aleodor
Break
Five minutes
Alexandru
Boxes three and four
The two questions, written down
Alexandru
The value question
Never ask what they would do. Ask what they did.
"Would you use this?" gets a yes from almost everyone, including people who will never think about you again.
"When did you last go looking for a co-founder?" gets you something that already happened. The past cannot flatter you.
Alexandru
The same curiosity, asked two ways
Questions that flatter you
Would you use this?
Does this sound useful?
How much would you pay for it?
Do you like it?
Questions that cost something to answer
When did you last try to solve this?
What did you do, step by step?
What did that cost you?
What did you do instead, in the end?
If they have to imagine the answer, you are collecting imagination.
Alexandru
The strongest value signal there is
Value costs them something.
A name. A slot in their calendar. A document. Money. A question about when it ships.
"Interesting" is free.
Alexandru
The usability question
Stop asking. Start watching.
Pick the one step you are least sure about, then say nothing at all while somebody tries it. Eight awkward seconds of a stranger clicking around will teach you more than twenty minutes of their opinion.
Alexandru
Tandem, both questions, narrow enough to answer
The value question
Have solo founders actually tried to find a stranger to build with, or do they only ever trust people they have worked with?
Checkable: what did they do, the last time they needed one?
The usability question
Can somebody describe what they are missing clearly enough for a match to mean anything?
Checkable: watch five people fill in the profile step, alone.
Both answerable by Thursday. Neither of them is "is the app good".
Alexandru
Field sheet, boxes three and four
Write your two questions
- One value question, answerable from something that already happened.
- One usability question, answerable by watching one step.
- Next to each, the answer that would make you change your plan.
If no answer would change anything, you are not testing. You are fishing for compliments.
Aleodor
Box five
The task you give them
Aleodor
Give them a goal. Not a tour.
The second you say "now click sign up", the test is over. You have measured whether they can follow directions, and they can, because they are adults.
Aleodor
The same test, two openings
Instructions
"Click sign up, fill in your skills, then look at the matches."
You learn whether they can follow directions.
Every stumble is your fault and tells you nothing.
A goal
"You have decided you need a technical co-founder. See how far you get with this."
You learn where they go first, and what they expected.
Every stumble is a finding.
Say it once. Then the silence does the work.
Aleodor
Field sheet, box five
Write the task
- One realistic goal, in their words, not in your feature names.
- No steps. No "then".
- Read it out loud. If it contains "click", write it again.
Then write down what you say next: nothing at all.
Alexandru
Box six
What you say when they get stuck
Alexandru
Sit on your hands.
Every instinct you have will tell you to help. This is the thirty seconds you came for, and helping is how you delete it.
Alexandru
I'll just show you how it's supposed to work.
All of us, about nine minutes in.
Alexandru
Your whole script, six lines
Six things to say, and nothing else
Count to eight. Most people solve it, or say something useful, by six.
Brings them back to their own goal without pointing anywhere.
The gap between what they expected and what is on screen is the finding.
Gets you the sentence word for word, which you will want on Friday.
Unsticks them without handing over the answer.
Turns an opinion into a behaviour you can watch.
Alexandru
And three you will badly want to say
Three sentences that end the test
- "You just need to click there."
- "Oh, that part is not finished yet."
- "So what you mean is..."
Say any of them and the rest of the session is just you, talking to yourself.
Alexandru
Field sheet, box six
Practise the silence
- In your breakout room, one of you gets stuck on purpose.
- The other says nothing for eight seconds. Count them.
- Then one prompt from the six. Only one.
Then write down the one you are most likely to blurt out, and cross it off your own sheet.
Aleodor
The back of the sheet
Writing down what happened
Aleodor
The distinction we work on all Friday
Two columns. Keep them apart.
What you saw on the left. What you reckon it meant on the right.
Both are worth having. Mixed together they stop being evidence and turn into a story, and a story is how a team talks itself into the wrong fix.
Aleodor
The same thirty seconds, in two columns
What happened
Scrolled past the profile step twice.
Said: "I do not know what to put here."
Stopped, opened another tab, came back.
Typed "a technical guy, I guess".
What I think it means
The profile step is not readable.
She did not know what we were asking for.
She went to check something.
She does not know what she needs yet.
A camera would have caught everything on the left. The right-hand column is you, guessing, and you are allowed to be wrong there.
Aleodor
Their words, not your summary.
Not the gist. The sentence.
On Friday, one line in their voice will move this group further than a page of yours.
Alexandru
Box seven
The plan for the next two days
Alexandru
How many people
5
For usability. The convention is Jakob Nielsen's, from 2000, and it is about how many people it takes to find the problems in a screen.
It says nothing at all about whether anybody wants the thing.
Alexandru
Two questions, two different recruiting problems
For usability
Five is a reasonable place to stop.
They have to match box one, and that is all.
One at a time, alone, with you watching.
For value
Five is a start, not an answer.
Spread across different situations, not your five friends.
You are looking for a pattern in what they did, not a vote.
Five of the wrong people is worse than three of the right ones, because five feels like enough to stop.
Alexandru
Before tonight ends
Four things on your page before we log off
- A name. One real person who has said yes.
- A time, agreed with them, in your calendar.
- Who runs the session, and who writes.
- Where the notes live, so both of you can find them on Friday.
A test with no name and no time in it is a plan to test next month.
Alexandru
Field sheet, box seven
Message one person now
- Pick the person who most clearly matches box one.
- Ask for twenty minutes before Friday.
- Say you want to watch them try something, not show them something.
Send it now, while we are all still here and it is equally awkward for everybody.
Both
What changes between now and Friday
Go and be wrong about something.
If you come back on Friday with everything you believed tonight still standing, you did not run a test. You ran a demo with extra steps.
Both
Friday. Bring the back of the sheet.
Messy is fine. Coffee on it is fine. Blank is a problem.