Product

What You Should Never Ask Your Customers

Common wisdom says to speak with potential users to check that people want something before building it. So I did — but it didn’t go according to plan.

Several years ago, I created a mobile app called Spotnight that showed you every nightlife event across a city on any given night. The idea came about when I was with a group of friends at a bar, trying to figure out where to go next.

“Wouldn’t it be cool,” someone said, “if there was an app that listed all the different night spots and told you where your friends were going?” The response was an excited and unanimous, “Yes!” I’d found my startup idea.

Getting Out of the House

It was 2012 and I was living in Rio de Janeiro. There was no shortage of potential users around me. I asked questions to dozens of my friends, and their friends, and random people that I’d meet. Here’s roughly how it went:

Q: “How often do you miss great nights out because you’re unaware they’re happening?”

A: “Pretty much all the time!”

Q: “What do you think about an app that shows you all the parties — and where your friends are going?”

A: “Sounds really awesome!”

Q: “Would you use an app like that often?”

A: “Definitely! In fact, I’d use it to find out where I’m going this weekend — I don’t have any plans yet! Where do I sign up?”

There was clearly a market for the app, and excitement fueled me as I worked night and day to build it. After three months of hard labour (okay, it was probably more like six months), the Spotnight app arrived on the app store with a big cheer from my friends.

Everyone downloaded it and used it. The end.

Reality Check

Wait a minute. Not so fast.

Was there a problem with the activity logs? Far fewer people were continuing to use the app than I’d expected. More baffling still, the people that said they’d use it most weren’t actually using it at all!