Thank you. I have found an untapped niche and took a bet. Only companies in this market, that are doing it in an unbiased way (they do not pay responders to answer the surveys) are the ones that charge $2K upwards per survey. There are no providers for SMB's and startups!
And surely not a record, IndieHackers is full of stories like that! Still, I am really proud and happy of how it is going.
How do you qualify candidates as being the target audience, and what happens if it’s a really small, hard-to-reach niche - how do you guarantee the number of respondents?
To add onto this, how much manual intervention is required in creating the list and contacting them? I feel like there's a reason the competition costs so much more. Seems like, even with "AI" involved, there would be quite a bit of leg work.
There is some, to be honest. I am running at $0 profit (as per my report). I have got a nice discount for leads (I am categorized as a research project since I strip all the personal data). This gives me the ability to run this. There is some time required for each order and there will be no way this could be 100% hands-off project.
There is no low cost option like ours because of two reasons:
1) There is barely any competition, so companies just use that to hike up prices.
2) They provide the leads that answered the survey, so they cannot be categorized as a research project. This makes those leads cost 5-10 times what I pay.
OK, that makes sense. I'm sure you've thought of this, but you are inline with your lead generators terms of service by charging for your product? I'd hate to see you get in trouble since you are getting some social traction here.
Yes, that is allowed. I can sell results, not actual data. No risk for me whatsoever as long as I make sure no personal data of leads is given to the end customer.
> They provide the leads that answered the survey...
That, in itself, seems like it's worth the extra cost so you could do things like "Hey, your survey information was very helpful, here's 50% off your first meal at BurgerBarn!"
Some niches are indeed impossible to reach. If the niche is extremely small I advise on contacting me first. If I will be unable to deliver I will simply issue a refund.
Candidates are qualified through lead generation tool. You need to specify your audience during the order process. We use that to find them.
Hi good idea? I would like to put my product through this but 1 thing concerns me. How do i know you actually asked the users ? If everyone is anonymous then how can you guarantee this ?
Well, I know this is a trust issue with all the research companies. The answer is comments - you can figure if the users are real by checking comments submitted by them. They are usually pretty specific and helpful.
i wish indie hackers would stop posting so many stories about how quickly someone got x monthly revenue. it’s impossible to tell them apart, although they’re all very different and interesting stories
Sorry not trying to be negative but how do I know who those people are "experts" and "leaders"? The reason I am asking is in the FAQ page you mentioned: `Unlike our competition we do not pay them to answer surveys, so they are unbiased and will answer honestly`
How do you get people to invest time to answer questions without anything back? I take it some people would like to help but how sustainable is this model?
Not negative at all Oras. I understand there is a lot of questions that might need answering.
This is a research project - as such, the results are stripped of the personal data of responders.
You can often see that influencers are people high in the social ranks by reading their comments. Not always, but often they will give invaluable information. One that would be unseen from a regular member of the niche.
How do I get people? Well, I simply text them in a nice way. Explain that we are a small consulting firm that is helping this business to enter the market. And that his input would be invaluable. We contact rather a large number of leads to get guaranteed minimum responses.
What benefits do the reviewers get? Do they get a financial incentive or just because its something they might enjoy doing?
you said you get input. In the form of linkedin, emails, text, etc? Do you just copy paste the responses in, or do you automate this process entirely?
I had to do a review for my friends company who would fit in this category as well. It was part of the entreprenurship program at his university. He asked me 20 questions in my domain expertise in youtube / twitch and I gave one hour worth of answers. He asked 40 other people who had video experience as well in that domain
He said the insight was much more valuable than just text feedback he's gotten in the past.
Do you see video feedback as a thing, or even vocal, or do you prefer anonymizing to text only?
> What benefits do the reviewers get? Do they get a financial incentive or just because its something they might enjoy doing?
Enjoy doing/being helpful.
>you said you get input. In the form of linkedin, emails, text, etc? Do you just copy paste the responses in, or do you automate this process entirely?
Using text messages to direct potential responders to the quick survey.
>He said the insight was much more valuable than just text feedback he's gotten in the past.
>
>Do you see video feedback as a thing, or even vocal, or do you prefer anonymizing to text only?
No, not video feedback. There are companies doing the video feedback and usually, the pricing starts at around $10/review, so considerably more expensive.
This is a research project, so there is a certain amount of trust required. Also with most reports, you get very specific comments as well. Suggestions, critique, insider information. This can give you an idea of how targeted is the audience.
Can someone provide insight on how this works ? The author is buying leads in the desired area from an external company (which one?), and sending these people survey to complete (for free?) ?
I cannot mention the company I am using (NDA), but you can find those companies if you dig a little. There is much more than one.
I ask them politely to fill the quick survey (answers are submitted by clicking buttons rather than writing) and then an option to add a comment. A person can quickly fill it within 2 minutes.
Note, that only certain % of people contacted will fill out the survey.
I run IdeaCheck.io [0], a similar service. I appreciate competition, but this looks like a quickly thrown together MVP without a real product. Have a look at the graphs on the sample report [1] - it makes zero sense to present this information as a line chart. What is the significance of the 8 other data points on the chart that aren't labeled? What kind of metrics are "accuracy" and "feelings"? "My idea is 50% accurate?"
From the landing page: "Are you opening a burger joint around the corner? Let us talk to the people from the office building in front of it, your potential customers!" Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing.
IdeaCheck uses a professional panel provider to find respondents. We negotiated a contract with this provider to provide entrepreneurs with access to the same class of market research that Fortune 100 companies use. We don't make any targeting claims that we can't deliver on. Yes, respondents are paid, but that doesn't incentivize them to be extra nice - they answer multiple random surveys each day (from different companies doing market research) and are paid for their time, not their opinion. In general, I like the idea of not paying respondents and actively searching for a small target niche, but at the same time you're introducing a non-response bias (you're spamming hundreds of people to receive 25 survey responses - those who reply aren't an accurate representation of the target audience)
Well, ok. I see you decided to attack me. OK.
I am not interested in going into the fight with you, so I will answer just a few things I think people would like me to explain.
"My idea is 50% accurate?" - the question "How accurately do you think this idea solves the problem?" should explain that.
"Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing." - great, how?
"but at the same time you're introducing a non-response bias" - so according to you paying to pretty much-untargeted people to answer questions is better than getting some of the relevant people to fill out the survey? Interesting.
"you're spamming hundreds of people to receive 25 survey responses" - it seems you know things I don't know then. I am not spamming people. I send them a request if they can fill out the survey to help a company. All of the people we contacted agreed to be contacted.
Only because you have not managed to figure it out, does not mean other people haven't. I am OK with running at no profit, for now, to build the brand and get my name out.
You can pretend like paid, barely targeted people are better than answers from real, targeted, unpaid people. But the reality is, that even if only certain % of people answer to our call, they are still targeted, and they beat paid survey takers by a mile.
Very classy of you to post this kind of biased and offensive comment.
I have mentioned it previously, I can target people working in a company in an office building and try to reach to them. So yeah, there is a good chance I will be able to do so.
"A good chance I will be able to do so" is a very different thing from "Yes, I am doing this." A more accurate response would be "I'm not doing that."
As a general note, the parent comment seems like genuine feedback. Your response to it is very petty and hostile. You should learn to take feedback better.
I agree I could handle this better. To my defense after handling a few hundred emails, sales messages, comments etc. my brain was melting. I was prepared for everything, besides hijacking my thread for self-promotion. My reaction obviously should be better.
> Very classy of you to post this kind of biased and offensive comment.
I don't know how my comment was "biased and offensive", I even said I liked the approach in general? I pointed out factual inaccuracies and things that don't make sense in your landing page copy and sample report, that's all.
> I am not spamming people. I send them a request if they can fill out the survey to help a company. All of the people we contacted agreed to be contacted.
I was using "spamming" in the sense of "mass-emailing people". This introduces a non-response bias.
> the question "How accurately do you think this idea solves the problem?" should explain that.
I still don't understand this question. Does a flower shop _accurately_ solve the need for floral gifts? It's just not a term I would use in this context, but ok, hopefully your survey respondents will understand what it means :).
> Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing." - great, how?
Let's suppose I place an order for the following idea "I want to open up a burger food truck next to the AmeriCar Insurance office building in Chappaqua, NY" - this is your example on your landing page. No problem, right? Please don't make promises that you can't keep.
I'm not saying one or the other approach is better - there's definitely a need for both, I just don't think that you can consistently deliver this. Good luck!
> Let's suppose I place an order for the following idea "I want to open up a burger food truck next to the AmeriCar Insurance office building in Chappaqua, NY" - this is your example on your landing page. No problem, right? Please don't make promises that you can't keep.
I can decide to not fulfill the order and refund the money. I have actually turned down few requests already. I am not greedy and I am not taking all orders as they come. I have right to refuse and refund if I cannot fulfill the promises made.
> I don't know how my comment was "biased and offensive"
Mmm, imagine someone in real life presents their project to you and the first thing you say to them is that it "looks like a quickly thrown together MVP without a real product" and that their graphs "makes zero sense." Really imagine saying that to someone out loud.
Could you really blame them for being offended? Just because we're on HN doesn't mean we cease to be humans with feelings.
> so according to you paying to pretty much-untargeted people to answer questions is better than getting some of the relevant people to fill out the survey? Interesting.
Could you address this feedback directly instead of making a straw man? How do you prevent non-response bias?
That doesn't answer the question. Responders who see the idea as valuable are more likely to answer, which could skew your data. (this is more or less the definition of non-response bias) What is your solution to this? Original response proposed a pre-selected population who have incentive to respond either way.
I tend to agree with OP, just because people are getting paid doesn't mean they're leaving biased reviews. Also, how long are people going to be willing to do this without expecting anything in return? It doesn't seem very sustainable and certainly won't scale as you get more customers.
This whole business just has a very scammy feel to it, and it just seems so rushed.
Congrats you made 1000 bucks in a month, who cares? Put together something people will actually want and can trust. Why not take the time to do that? The only thing this tells me is that you're not very serious, and so I won't be buying anything from you. I'm much more inclined to go with OP who has probably been doing this longer and appears to have done the research.
How do you scale that? How do you become an expert in targeting my demographic? Why would I pay you to do that when I could do that myself and trust myself more with the results?
You need to be in the business of building trust, and a simple MVP doesn't convey that to me. Especially one in which has some glaring holes like OP mentioned.
Here's some feedback from someone who isn't a competitor of your's.
I'm guessing you're using facebook ads to hand out surveys to targeted people. If that's not exactly what you're doing, you should be aware of the fact that your business model's value is to bypass people from going into the facebook ad manager, creating a survey, selecting a few interests / demographics and then hitting enter.
There's not a lot of value in this business model, especially given that if I did this using facebook, I would have the actual audience instead of your summary of it.
Next piece of advice, be less emotional. Someone criticized you. Don't take it personally, address their points or don't, I don't care, but as a potential customer, I look at this message and immediately am turned off by it. The message above does make some good points and you just try to drown it out with emotion.
Last piece of advice, I actually think there's a lot of value in talking to people directly. If you could actually "talk to the people from the office building in front of it" and then scale it, that might have value but from your website, I have no clue if that's what you're doing and I actually get the impression that you're not.
I am actually not using Facebook Ads. I am using lead generation tools to find prospects and contact them using text messages. No ads are involved in the process.
"The message above does make some good points and you just try to drown it out with emotion." - sorry, but I find post above my response to be a self-promotion and invalid judging. I have no issue with answering questions, no matter how difficult they are. But a competitor should have more class than just "assuming" and basing a line of offense on that. There is a difference I think in asking valid questions and using the assumptions by a competitor to attack my business.
"I have no clue if that's what you're doing and I actually get the impression that you're not." - we can target people that work for a company located in an office building for example. As mentioned previously, I am using text messages to reach the people. This is just an example of targeting we provide.
You can get a mobile phone for people that work for a company, or for a division (if it is a different entity). There is quite a lot of companies providing that data.
My two cents in this discussion is that neither of the platforms tell how they get answers.
On IndieHackers, ideacheck has been asked several times what panel its used, but was never disclosed. The same is true for afteridea. The fact that both have big claims and no evidence supporting their statement is at most curious.
Do the respondents know they are responding anonymously to the primary service or is that not the case? For some surveys users will respond differently based on whether or not they feel anonymous.
Cool idea and product but this strikes me as a horrible product for an entrepreneur to use. If I was the entrepreneur looking to open the cake shop or burger joint or whatever, why would I pay you to ask random people their opinion when I could just stand on the corner and do it myself? You have an enormous loss of information here as well; I get none of the nonverbal and facial communication that I would get from an in person interaction. This just strikes me as lazy entrepreneurship.
So here's how I see this (and what I believe you're missing)...
There may be 200 things you MUST do when you open a cake shop or burger joint. This being one of them.
Having a service available, for a reasonable price, to help you take one of those 200 items off your plate is a value add, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.
Further, yes, you can miss out on nonverbal and facial communication. But, you also get an honest answer. Most people don't want to give negative feedback face-to-face, and will lie just to avoid it.
Calling this lazy is, well, a bit harsh. It adds value.
I don't see this as just another thing; this is an existential question for the business. Moreover, this is something you undertake in the planning phase. You should not be filing paperwork and buying shit before you even start your research/customer interviews.
Plus, how can you really trust these results unless you did the research yourself? Are you going to base your entire business thesis on the results of a $300 survey? What do these results even mean, relatively speaking? I feel like speaking to customers is too important to contract away.
65 comments
[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadAnd surely not a record, IndieHackers is full of stories like that! Still, I am really proud and happy of how it is going.
There is no low cost option like ours because of two reasons:
1) There is barely any competition, so companies just use that to hike up prices.
2) They provide the leads that answered the survey, so they cannot be categorized as a research project. This makes those leads cost 5-10 times what I pay.
That, in itself, seems like it's worth the extra cost so you could do things like "Hey, your survey information was very helpful, here's 50% off your first meal at BurgerBarn!"
Candidates are qualified through lead generation tool. You need to specify your audience during the order process. We use that to find them.
Thanks
This is a research project - as such, the results are stripped of the personal data of responders.
You can often see that influencers are people high in the social ranks by reading their comments. Not always, but often they will give invaluable information. One that would be unseen from a regular member of the niche.
How do I get people? Well, I simply text them in a nice way. Explain that we are a small consulting firm that is helping this business to enter the market. And that his input would be invaluable. We contact rather a large number of leads to get guaranteed minimum responses.
you said you get input. In the form of linkedin, emails, text, etc? Do you just copy paste the responses in, or do you automate this process entirely?
I had to do a review for my friends company who would fit in this category as well. It was part of the entreprenurship program at his university. He asked me 20 questions in my domain expertise in youtube / twitch and I gave one hour worth of answers. He asked 40 other people who had video experience as well in that domain
He said the insight was much more valuable than just text feedback he's gotten in the past.
Do you see video feedback as a thing, or even vocal, or do you prefer anonymizing to text only?
Enjoy doing/being helpful.
>you said you get input. In the form of linkedin, emails, text, etc? Do you just copy paste the responses in, or do you automate this process entirely?
Using text messages to direct potential responders to the quick survey.
>He said the insight was much more valuable than just text feedback he's gotten in the past. > >Do you see video feedback as a thing, or even vocal, or do you prefer anonymizing to text only?
No, not video feedback. There are companies doing the video feedback and usually, the pricing starts at around $10/review, so considerably more expensive.
I ask them politely to fill the quick survey (answers are submitted by clicking buttons rather than writing) and then an option to add a comment. A person can quickly fill it within 2 minutes.
Note, that only certain % of people contacted will fill out the survey.
From the landing page: "Are you opening a burger joint around the corner? Let us talk to the people from the office building in front of it, your potential customers!" Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing.
IdeaCheck uses a professional panel provider to find respondents. We negotiated a contract with this provider to provide entrepreneurs with access to the same class of market research that Fortune 100 companies use. We don't make any targeting claims that we can't deliver on. Yes, respondents are paid, but that doesn't incentivize them to be extra nice - they answer multiple random surveys each day (from different companies doing market research) and are paid for their time, not their opinion. In general, I like the idea of not paying respondents and actively searching for a small target niche, but at the same time you're introducing a non-response bias (you're spamming hundreds of people to receive 25 survey responses - those who reply aren't an accurate representation of the target audience)
[0] https://www.ideacheck.io
[1] https://afteridea.com/app/index.php?id=5b396a5f4eb37
"My idea is 50% accurate?" - the question "How accurately do you think this idea solves the problem?" should explain that.
"Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing." - great, how?
"but at the same time you're introducing a non-response bias" - so according to you paying to pretty much-untargeted people to answer questions is better than getting some of the relevant people to fill out the survey? Interesting.
"you're spamming hundreds of people to receive 25 survey responses" - it seems you know things I don't know then. I am not spamming people. I send them a request if they can fill out the survey to help a company. All of the people we contacted agreed to be contacted.
Only because you have not managed to figure it out, does not mean other people haven't. I am OK with running at no profit, for now, to build the brand and get my name out. You can pretend like paid, barely targeted people are better than answers from real, targeted, unpaid people. But the reality is, that even if only certain % of people answer to our call, they are still targeted, and they beat paid survey takers by a mile.
Very classy of you to post this kind of biased and offensive comment.
>> Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing.
> great, how?
Well...ARE you going to talk to the people from the office building in front of it?
As a general note, the parent comment seems like genuine feedback. Your response to it is very petty and hostile. You should learn to take feedback better.
I don't know how my comment was "biased and offensive", I even said I liked the approach in general? I pointed out factual inaccuracies and things that don't make sense in your landing page copy and sample report, that's all.
> I am not spamming people. I send them a request if they can fill out the survey to help a company. All of the people we contacted agreed to be contacted.
I was using "spamming" in the sense of "mass-emailing people". This introduces a non-response bias.
> the question "How accurately do you think this idea solves the problem?" should explain that.
I still don't understand this question. Does a flower shop _accurately_ solve the need for floral gifts? It's just not a term I would use in this context, but ok, hopefully your survey respondents will understand what it means :).
> Sorry, I can guarantee you that's not what you're doing." - great, how?
Let's suppose I place an order for the following idea "I want to open up a burger food truck next to the AmeriCar Insurance office building in Chappaqua, NY" - this is your example on your landing page. No problem, right? Please don't make promises that you can't keep.
I'm not saying one or the other approach is better - there's definitely a need for both, I just don't think that you can consistently deliver this. Good luck!
I can decide to not fulfill the order and refund the money. I have actually turned down few requests already. I am not greedy and I am not taking all orders as they come. I have right to refuse and refund if I cannot fulfill the promises made.
Mmm, imagine someone in real life presents their project to you and the first thing you say to them is that it "looks like a quickly thrown together MVP without a real product" and that their graphs "makes zero sense." Really imagine saying that to someone out loud.
Could you really blame them for being offended? Just because we're on HN doesn't mean we cease to be humans with feelings.
Could you address this feedback directly instead of making a straw man? How do you prevent non-response bias?
This whole business just has a very scammy feel to it, and it just seems so rushed.
Congrats you made 1000 bucks in a month, who cares? Put together something people will actually want and can trust. Why not take the time to do that? The only thing this tells me is that you're not very serious, and so I won't be buying anything from you. I'm much more inclined to go with OP who has probably been doing this longer and appears to have done the research.
I think you missed the part - I contact new audience for every customer. Those are not the same asked over and over to answer questions.
I'm guessing you're using facebook ads to hand out surveys to targeted people. If that's not exactly what you're doing, you should be aware of the fact that your business model's value is to bypass people from going into the facebook ad manager, creating a survey, selecting a few interests / demographics and then hitting enter.
There's not a lot of value in this business model, especially given that if I did this using facebook, I would have the actual audience instead of your summary of it.
Next piece of advice, be less emotional. Someone criticized you. Don't take it personally, address their points or don't, I don't care, but as a potential customer, I look at this message and immediately am turned off by it. The message above does make some good points and you just try to drown it out with emotion.
Last piece of advice, I actually think there's a lot of value in talking to people directly. If you could actually "talk to the people from the office building in front of it" and then scale it, that might have value but from your website, I have no clue if that's what you're doing and I actually get the impression that you're not.
"The message above does make some good points and you just try to drown it out with emotion." - sorry, but I find post above my response to be a self-promotion and invalid judging. I have no issue with answering questions, no matter how difficult they are. But a competitor should have more class than just "assuming" and basing a line of offense on that. There is a difference I think in asking valid questions and using the assumptions by a competitor to attack my business.
"I have no clue if that's what you're doing and I actually get the impression that you're not." - we can target people that work for a company located in an office building for example. As mentioned previously, I am using text messages to reach the people. This is just an example of targeting we provide.
On IndieHackers, ideacheck has been asked several times what panel its used, but was never disclosed. The same is true for afteridea. The fact that both have big claims and no evidence supporting their statement is at most curious.
I suppose being open also opens you up to attacks from your competitors. Sorry to see that.
I could definitely use a service like this and most of the questions asked (and that you've answered) so far have addressed my own.
There may be 200 things you MUST do when you open a cake shop or burger joint. This being one of them.
Having a service available, for a reasonable price, to help you take one of those 200 items off your plate is a value add, allowing you to focus on other areas of your business.
Further, yes, you can miss out on nonverbal and facial communication. But, you also get an honest answer. Most people don't want to give negative feedback face-to-face, and will lie just to avoid it.
Calling this lazy is, well, a bit harsh. It adds value.
Plus, how can you really trust these results unless you did the research yourself? Are you going to base your entire business thesis on the results of a $300 survey? What do these results even mean, relatively speaking? I feel like speaking to customers is too important to contract away.
Most of my customers are startup owners, where they need another form of validation before they will spend few months and their savings on a project.
It must be valuable to people, whether you think they are lazy or not, or it wouldn't exist.
Here is someone filling that existing need, with their product, and being publicly transparent about it along the way.
Kudos to them!