Conducting research on-site at Lighthouse Pont.[/caption]I am an earth scientist. I think rocks are cool. I look at a landscape and I want to know how it formed and why it is the way we see it today.
The truth be told, I am just generally an informationophile. I like to know detailed information about a place, either close to home or when I travel. How come this gorgeous spot is still undeveloped and not a shopping mall? Are these plants native?
But how many people are like this?
The question is particularly relevant since I have just left a perfectly good career as an academic to create a startup company making natural history and human history “app-tours” for smart phones. I did this because I was convinced at least 5-10% of the population would be like the woman on the top cartoon and not the bottom cartoon.
I launched the product. It felt good. I was proud.
Six months later…5-10% of the locals and tourists have not bought the product. That’s putting it mildly. The question is do I just need better marketing than I currently have or is there simply no “product-market fit?”
So I talked my friend Robin into coming with me to Lighthouse Point, the center of my app-tour, to talk to potential customers. I brought donuts thinking it would lure them on over to my table. The main question we asked was “While you are here at such a pretty place, do you want to just look around, zone out, talk about yourself with your friend, or do you want more information about the place, i.e., its history, and what makes it unique?”
We were able to beckon seven “subjects”. Even with donuts you have to beckon hard. Perhaps being in Santa Cruz gluten-free muffins would have been better as hardly anyone took the donuts.
Two friends, twenty-something women, gave me the most hope. “Totally! We want information about the whales and where to see them.” They were locals, dancers, and had even danced about the local surf history of Santa Cruz. They used elephant seals and sea lions to personify the East-side, West-side surf rivalry. They said they were just talking about wanting an app with this kind of stuff.
The rest were rather more luke warm on the idea of more information. “Sure that would be fine.”
Now if my friend Robin blurted out, “Oh she is geologist, she made this app, here she will show you!” Then they said nice things and thought the app was great. Whether they simply did not want to hurt my feelings or were just convinced by my personal love affair with my own app, I don’t know.
In my first haphazard foray into market research, I learned that most people probably are content to just be at a place without finding out much about it. One person said “I am a local, I am here all the time, I wish I cared, but I don’t.” Even she however, like most of the others, got interested when I showed her the app.
My sample size is too small to be very scientific but 1/7 genuinely wanted and were actually looking for this kind of information. My optimistic take home message: that is in the 5-10% range (technically 14%), maybe there is a market. The other 6/7 could be convinced. Take home message here, better marketing might get these people to buy the app, but probably best not to count on that.
Clearly this is just the beginning of my market research activities. I will fine tune, explore other methods and get back with an update.
