How To Do Research for Poor Startups

Written By Nikola Závadská
How to do startup research the cheap way - Workaholic Club Newsletter

Let’s talk about research. Everyone knows we should do it, but even if we know how to do it, we don’t end up doing it because there is no time. And it also sounds expensive as hell. But you know what’s even more expensive? Focusing on the wrong thing… 🫣
 

Start with why

Before researching anything be clear on your goal and research question. What is it that you need to know? This is going to help you avoid distractions and going in circles. If you’re just starting out focus on identifying user groups and their pains and desires.

Once you understand your audience you can start focusing on more detailed questions and testing your ideas.
 

Low-budget research strategies

1. Online communities

Communities are a goldmine! There is so much you can learn about your audience, their problems, desires, different viewpoints, and opinions. Try Facebook groups, Linkedin groups, and Reddit. Or find private communities on Slack or Discord.

Also often overlooked communities are hiding in creators’ comment sections on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms.
 

2. Early access programs

If you already have reach (or a few bucks spare to run ads) try creating early access programs. You don’t even need to have a product yet, just a landing page where people sign up for their interest. Get in touch with everyone who signs up - you can do an exploratory interview, test your designs, or get a clear idea of use cases. Depending on what is it that you’re trying to understand.

PS. This will only work if you already know how to reach your audience, otherwise, you’re just screaming into the void.
 

3. Talk to your power users

If you’re lucky to already have a product and users reach out to your most engaged users (aka power users). Reach out to them directly via email, or your social media. If that doesn’t work try reaching out via support tickets, you always get a higher chance for a response if they recently directly engaged with you.

You can also offer a gift card for their time, but we noticed this didn’t really make much difference in the increasing number of research bookings among power users. A higher benefit for them seems to be an acknowledgment that the feedback is going to help move the product forward and make their life easier.
 

4. In-person demos (my personal favorite)

Take advantage of doing things that don’t scale, especially when you’re small. One of the best decisions we ever made was to do in-person demos. And it turned out to be one of our greatest research tools. We could easily figure out who our customers are, what they’re looking for, and why.

You can always take the first 10 minutes of demo calls for introduction and research before you start talking about your product.
 

Tools are your friends


Research in your projects is the same as with learning in life. It should never stop otherwise you’ll stop moving forward.


Happy researching my workaholic friends 💜

Nikola Závadská
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