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Ask HN: Getting a survey of customer interest without giving too much away?

2 points by tsestrich ↗ HN
So I've been in the process of developing a new website on the side as something that one day might turn into a legitimate company.

I was thinking that I want to get opinions from my target audience before I get too heavily into it, but I'm a little nervous about giving out too many details about the project for fear that the idea might be "stolen".

While more than likely this is just me being a bit too paranoid, I did want to see what other people had to say about this. How do you go about getting a sense of market interest in a new product and still remain able to protect your idea?

I'm sure the majority of my audience that I would talk to would not have the technical skills nor the desire to rip off the idea, but I can never be sure of course.

7 comments

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cperciva
When I was thinking of starting tarsnap, I just posted to my blog saying "here's what I think a backup service should look like; I can't see anything out there which looks like this; if I build this, will anyone pay to use it?"

Now, tarsnap is a bit unusual in that the technical aspects create a significant barrier to entry (even leaving aside issues of efficiency and performance, few people have the security expertise necessary); but as far as I know, nobody tried to steal my idea.

ismarc
I've had several ideas that I keep trying to get someone to steal because I don't have the time to do myself. Such as an "open source dating and brainstorming site." Don't just pair developers to projects. Provide artist, design, QA, project management, tech writers, beta/alpha testers and developers way to seek each other out. Then make it seamless to submit "ideas". Ideas are just that, someone went "dude, it'd be awesome if" and allow feedback. A project can then implement the idea, but it's just a soft link, the project isn't required to follow it at all. And any other project is free to implement it as well. I had the idea when trying to find a graphic/UI designer willing to work on an anemic budget for an open source project (ended up being only about 4-5 hours of time, but I was expecting it to take a couple of weeks to finish).
sharpn
Ok, the chance your idea is stolen is not zero - but it's a lot lower than you think. That said, there are a few things you can do without revealing your idea; use google trends to identify search volume for the problem you're solving, search forums for questions indicating frustration at the lack of your solution etc.

Mechanical Turk can also generate cheap data about the likely size of your market & whether your solution is viable. There was a post here yesterday with good advice on how to screen for quality there. [edit] http://www.itworld.com/internet/76659/experimenting-mechanic...

I've also seen a friend garner some useful data with a small adwords campaign testing to see if people would click on 'solve problem x' ads - but that's a dubious tactic if you don't have a product yet...

Good luck.

pbhjpbhj
Having your idea stolen may not be so bad either. The usual analogy is the 2nd mouse getting the cheese.

An earlier competitor can open up a market for you to swoop into and grab, if your product is better or better marketed.

Of course a canny mouse might grab the cheese and leave the trap set for you to die on, don't trust dodgy business analogies too much.

A quick story about a little business - it's a pottery painting studio http://www.barefoot-ceramics.co.uk , we were hesitant about opening here because we saw the potential market to be possibly too small; pottery painting as a concept had not been established in the UK at the time. When we were preparing to open we were very secretive as we felt without first-move advantage or in the presence of competition we'd collapse. Another studio opened in the month before us whilst we were preparing the premises. They however closed 6 months later and, as we'd established a relationship with them, passed us on some customers and bookings. They also helped to establish the idea in the local area and probably in the long run we've had a small financial benefit from that time.

We've since suffered from customers who have (contrary to promises) established similar businesses locally by using our studio and then mimicing us. They liked what we were doing so much they thought they'd try and put us out of business, nice! You can't really do much about that sort of thing though.

byoung2
I have at least 10 good business ideas a month...I just don't have the time and energy to execute them, and I bet the would-be idea thieves don't either (I don't know if they're even worth pursuing). Edison's adage "Success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration" is so true for startup ideas.

Here's an example of an idea I had just yesterday: A dating site that's like a mashup of meetup.com and match.com with a dash of speed dating. Instead of looking for one-on-one dates, you put in all of your interests and create small groups to do activities together, and then you can get to know each other in person, and maybe click with someone you like. There's no pressure...if you don't connect with anyone, you can at least have a good time hanging out in a group.

Ok, I put my idea out there for anyone to steal...let's see how long it takes for someone to execute it!

tsestrich
That's a good point, and I agree that it's highly unlikely that anyone will have the time or resources to execute an idea I share with them. I would hope that they get excited about the idea though, to the point where they wish they could do it themselves.

I guess what I'm getting out of this is "don't worry about it". I think that as long as I don't go pitching the ideas to a competitor, I'll probably be okay. I guess it also can't hurt to keep developing a little bit more before pitching an idea, so that I have something concrete to show.

byoung2
That's a good idea to develop a little before sharing it...at least you'll have a head start when the competitors start copying.

Of course, if someone does beat you to market, you can find a weakness and create a better version.