A series of experiments gives significant innovation teams momentum and builds more robust evidence over time. We discuss one four-step example of how to conduct and analyze multiple experiments to increase the strength of your evidence in this blog post. 

Analyze customer's problem

As a startup, all you have is an idea to solve a particular problem or alleviate a specific pain point. While you might have an idea about what your customer segment ought to be and even created a Customer Profile of them, how can you determine whether or not you're right? Talk to your prospective customers as soon as you're out of the building. You can gain initial qualitative insight from Customer Interviews to determine if the problem you imagined for the segment exists and if your value proposition resonates. 

Currently, you lack any objective evidence since people are just telling you what they might do or not do. Nevertheless, it is highly beneficial to capture some initial insights, especially when you don't know anything. Usually, 15-20 interviews are recommended. 

What is recommended?

  • Interview in pairs so one person can actively listen and ask follow-up questions while the other takes good notes. 
  • After each interview, conduct a brief debrief to determine what worked and what didn't. Ideally, you should use this opportunity to fine-tune your interview questions so that your following interview will be better.

What is not recommended?

  • Don't try to figure out what people want. The problem is that they may not know what is feasible, and it is not their job to tell you what they want. Instead, take the time to understand what they need to accomplish and how they intend to achieve it.
  • Stop "interpreting" what other people are saying. Rather than analyzing quotes verbatim, try writing them down verbatim and looking for patterns. After about 15-20 interviews, you might start to notice some ways. 

A scaled-up version of this problem exists.  

Following the qualitative insights gained from interviews, you should strive to test your value proposition on a bigger scale quantitatively. Spending a few hundred dollars each day on Google Display, Google Search, and Twitter Ads is one method to do this. By developing two versions of the same ad, often known as Split Testing, you may test at scale whether a particular pain or gain of your consumer stronger resonates. We've gone over how to make an internet ad using templates in great detail.

What can you do to help?

  • It is crucial to value your canvas! All of the hard work you've previously put into developing your value proposition canvas may be used to write your ad copy.
  • To guarantee you're hitting the proper customer demographic, test your ad across numerous platforms.
  • Make the most of this opportunity to grow your list of early adopters. Returning to test and interview them is usually beneficial.

What should you not do?

  • Don't create the ad on its own. Ensure it's connected to the hypothesis you're investigating and whether the data will support or disprove it. Maintain your focus on the prize.

Customer's actively seeking a solution to their problem.

Each of these testing procedures should expand on the prior test's evidence strength. Interviews helped obtain first impressions, but what people say and what they do are frequently at odds. It's critical to back up your claims with better evidence by encouraging people to take action, whether purchasing something, using your service, or investing time or other resources.

You don't want to waste many resources constructing something at this phase because your idea is still highly unknown. The Concierge is a demonstration of how to build a client experience without designing anything from scratch. Because everything is done manually, it is impossible to scale. Still, it can provide you with direct knowledge of what is required to create, collect, and distribute value to a consumer.

What should you do?

  • Ensure to prepare all the needed steps to create the service or product manually. 
  • If you're taking online orders, integrate web page analytics. 
  • Be on the lookout for patterns. This experiment aims to collect statistically significant data points, which entails looking for trends in how people interact with your minimum viable product (MVP).

What should you not do?

  • Take on more work than you're capable of. You won't collect any valuable proof if you can't deliver your value proposition to your customer.

This feature will solve the customer's problems

When creating your value proposition, you may have a long list of features you want to include, but you don't know where to begin or if your consumer will be interested in all of them. A single-feature minimum viable product (MVP) is an excellent technique to see if a single feature solves your customer's problem. Building out your complete value offer will also require a lot less time and resources. You can also isolate and test a specific hypothesis by releasing features one at a time.

What should you do?

  • Develop a feature with the most miniature version that solves the customer's most essential job. 
  • Utilize the potential customers that you have acquired from the previous online Ad. 
  • Always plan your experiments so that you can keep track of the actual evidence you'll need to prove or disprove a hypothesis. This way, you'll know why your product or service is gaining popularity.

What should you not do?

  • Don't make a bare-bones version of your product. Making an MVP implies coming up with a minimal viable option for testing a hypothesis, and there is a distinction to be made.
  • Don't let those who didn't follow through get away with it. Always strive to find a means to get their feedback. It's just as vital to understanding why something didn't work as it is to understand what did.

It is not a linear process to create an experiment sequence. Always strive to collect feedback from your customer at every level of development to ensure you're solving an issue they're having. Make sure to urge your customer to strengthen the proof, but nothing stops you from conducting interviews along the road to get those insights.