I’m not getting users for my SaaS even though I did customer validation. Why?
Let’s do a Differential Diagnosis, House MD Styles!
Okay, so recently I found this Reddit post where a founder shared that he did customer validation with 50+ users but he’s still struggling.
I am currently binge-ing House MD so thought I’ll do a differential diagnosis for this business!
*Stares at the whiteboard*
Patient info — He has a SaaS that helps in user interviews. This is what the website copy says.
“User interviews made simple
Continuously conduct user interviews, prioritise opportunities and test solutions in one platform, so you can simply/consistently make informed product decisions.”
He told us that he validated the idea from 50+ Product Managers but now no one is using it.
Or if someone is they’re churning. And not answering!!
Come on! Let’s save some businesses and start with the diagnosis. What could be the reason?
Cameron — Poor market awareness. People don’t know it exists.
Foreman — Messaging could be off. Value proposition is not clear so no one is interested.
Chase — He didn’t really validate the actual idea, just self validated his ego
Okay, Let’s start with validation,
Step 1 — Does the market care about ‘user interview’ …the words written on his website?
Let’s check google keyword volume
“conduct user interview” — less than 1000 searches/month
“How to conduct user interview” — less than 1000 searches/month
“customer interview” — 4.4K searches/month
“tools for customer interview” — 100 searches/month
So, There’s more interest in “customer interview” than “user interview.”
That’s something, huh?
Step 2 — Now lets see if any competitors exist or not.
Searched “tools for customer interview” and no saas had advertised on it.
Interesting.
But the first 10 links were blogs talking about tools.
Found competitors with significant views (100K and 20K views).
So, competitors exist but they probably rank in other keywords?
3. Now let’s check Market Awareness.
Do people know the business of our patient exists?
Checking website traffic…
Oops that’s 0!
4. Now let’s check Messaging and User Experience
Website copy is okay but confusing after the above-the-fold section.
Personal experience: app navigation is confusing, but that might be on me as I didn’t use the tutorial.
Let’s conclude Dr. House style (PLS GET THE REFERENCE GUYS, lol)
Solutions
1. First up, the guy needs traffic. His competitors are getting some and he isn’t.
So competitor analysis to see what they are ranking on, and blogs they’ve written.
To do — Need to find keywords to rank on, and write blogs that would fit “How to do customer interviews”
That’s long-term.
Short team, since no one is running ads on “How to do customer interviews” they could!
That’ll buy them some traffic, so we could test further if the problem is the landing page, or the app.
2. Need at least 50 users to try before fixing the app/ui.
Reach out to the 50 people who initially showed interest and get them to test the product.
DM people on LinkedIn since that’s where product managers hang out?
Can also check the build in public community and indiehacker to see if founders need something like this.
I’d even go to Product Hunt to fish out founders who recently launched.
3. Finally, fix the copy. Add “Customer interviews” instead of “User interviews”
Can do A/B test on both of these keywords too.
Simpler benefit vs feature language
And some clips/ss of the tool
Sneaky idea — Use your own tool to interview your own users.
You’re your biggest cheerleader right?
Well, that’s it.
Hope this helps a founder make money! If you’re struggling with a marketing issue in your business, drop it below and I’ll do a Differential Diagnosis ;)
Cheers!
