How to Test Your Product
This project guide helps two Sky’s the Limit members work together through four meetings as they collaborate to test a new product.
Meeting 1: Identify your customers
Before this meeting:
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Make sure that you’ve had an intro meeting. If you need help navigating your first meeting, visit this Guide to Your First Meeting.
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Review: Customer Segmentation
In this meeting:
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Use the Customer Deepdive guide to help you identify your customers. Think through how your product or service works to solve a problem in their lives.
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Look for three different groups of customers that could use your product. It may be helpful to think of three existing customers you have or people you know.
After this meeting:
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Sleep on it 😴 - Review the guide and see if you’ve missed anything or if there’s anything you’d like to add.
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Note any agreed-upon next steps.
Meeting 2: Test your idea with customers
Before this meeting:
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Review the following:
In this meeting:
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Complete the Testing Your Idea Tool
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Make your own copy to fill in during this meeting
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After this meeting:
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Sleep on it 😴 - Review the guide and see if you’ve missed anything or if there’s anything you’d like to add.
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Note any agreed-upon next steps.
Meeting 3: Test with actual customers
Before this meeting:
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Review the following:
In this meeting:
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Identify the three best sales channels to test your product by selling it to actual customers.
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Make a plan to gather customer feedback through a survey or review system.
After this meeting:
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Try selling your product through the channels you’ve identified. If those don’t work, try 3 more!
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Follow up with those who bought to get reviews. For those who don’t buy your product, try to find out why they didn’t buy, and what would make them purchase.
Meeting 4: Refine and Improve
Before this meeting:
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Gather your customer feedback
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Review the following: Improve a Product
In this meeting:
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Group positive feedback into themes.
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Group negative feedback into themes.
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Identify the aspects of your idea that are working well as well as areas that need to be improved.
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Create a plan and timeline for the next test.
After this meeting:
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Make improvements to your product based on your findings, and repeat the testing process until you have achieved predictable sales results with mostly positive feedback.
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Be sure to mark your project complete, update your business tracker, and start a new project!
Want to talk to someone who can help?
Sky’s the Limit members are connected to a community of volunteer business mentors, more free tools and guides like this one, and exclusive funding opportunities.