I learned this when 83% of my customers canceled their subscription
I launched a pilot for a product I built three months ago.
I had six founders, ready to ride the next big thing in go-to-market since the word ‘market’ was introduced in the english dictionary.
83.3% of them canceled their subscription at the end of the two-month long pilot.
That type of churn rate would make you reconsider why you got into business in the first place.
It did the same to me. I wondered whether what I had built was useful.
Most people might find these results disappointing.
Weirdly enough, a few days later, it energized me. 10 years ago, a similar thing would have stopped me, entirely. Having me question everything I was doing. Before I started anything, I wanted certainty. I would ask friends for feedback, send out surveys, do endless user interviews, build something, and then wait for the perfect pitch
This time around, I didn’t wait that long. I launched, and used the solution together with people that paid for an outcome. They told me what was useful and what wasn’t. The results gave me clarity on what to do next.
I realized the only way you can learn whether what you’re building is worth building is through discomfort.
Stop asking your friends. Do the uncomfortable thing. Ask the market
Talking to just your friends is not going to help your business.
Friends and family help you get comfortable.
You need to get uncomfortable to grow and build traction for what you’re building.
When I started my software pilot. I showed a few friends. They said “Oh that’s so cool.” When I asked whether they’d pay for it. They stopped talking. Quickly switched the topic. Then I went out to meet people it would work for. Founders, entrepreneurs, people building businesses. I sent 75 DMs and texts. Got on 18 calls. Booked 6 paid pilots.
Over two months, these founders didn’t dance around the topic. In their limited time, they cut right to the chase.
They told me their expectations – where the tool exceeded and fell short. Whether it was valuable or not.
That’s real feedback.
Now I know what people are willing to pay and the features that provide the most value. I also know what it would take for me to deliver a good experience. I would have never gotten that valuable data from comfortable conversations with people that don’t need what I’m building.
I’ve seen the lack of tangible feedback cripple a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs from ever starting.
They ask friends. Picking brains multiple times. Every new conversation is just action delayed. They go ask an “expert” on whether they would be successful or not.
The only person that can give you that answer is the customer.
The sooner I talked to real customers, the faster everything moved.
Without this, I would have continued procrastinating, talking to people who don’t need what I’m building, staying comfortable.
If I didn’t push for the paid pilot, I’ll still be here vibe coding a solution that nobody asked for, while trying to stay cool and comfortable with my friends.
Doing the uncomfortable is not that easy.
But it’s only uncomfortable because you’re not embracing your weird self.
I’ve noticed that the people who grow are the ones weird enough to get in front of people that need what they create.
The 15-minute affiliation ask
To ease my discomfort, I built an affiliation list.
And asked people within that affiliation for 15 minutes of their time.
With my last pilot, I found a bunch of people that I believed would benefit from what I had built, and I just asked. By email, dm, and text.
That’s it.
Now, to put it in context, some of these people have heard about me or know me somehow. The newsletter, the linkedin posts. So it’s important to build that visibility. But a bunch of the people were just people I had worked with before, went to university, or lived in the same neighborhood that are now running businesses.
I believe it’s worth the try to test if what you’re building has some legs.
Here’s how I’d go about it.
Create an affiliation list: Reach out to people that you believe you can help that you have some affiliation with – high school, university, pickup league, former colleagues…etc.
Write your short message.
“Hey ((name)),
You might remember me from ((insert affiliation)). I’m building something that helps ((insert their persona e.g business owners, researchers)) do ((insert outcome)) by ((insert how what you’re building works)), without ((insert one thing they don’t want to do e.g wasting time on Linkedin)).
Do you have 15 minutes this week to show you how it works and see whether it would be useful for you?”
Send out a batch of 30 in a time-block of 30 minutes.
When you start, it’s a numbers game. Even if you don’t get a call. That’s data.
Track how many responses you get. If you get less than 20% responses, the value of what you’re doing is not resonating.
Time to refine.
You’ll get way better data than more self-talk and friend chats.
Closing Reflection:
I used to want validation from friends.
I wanted them to think I was smart. Now, I enjoy it more when they think I’m weird. That weirdness is what has gotten me out of my shell over the years to build businesses and quickly validate products I build. In an era, where it’s so easy to build, knowing what to build is the most vital insight. You can only get that from your customers and the market.
Getting weird – actually showing up in front of strangers who needed what I built – is what moved things.
So here’s the question I have for you: “What questions are you asking your friends that only your customer can answer?”
Yours truly,
Nifemi
P.S. If you read this far, can you reply to this email with one word that this newsletter made you think about?
