🍰 Thin Slice - Skinny Research

Hola 👋🏻

This week on the Thing Slice I’m talking all things research.  Why? well for a product to stand a fighting chance of being a success, it’s mainly research.  You know, like the human body is mainly water? well research is to products as water is to our bodies.

In one form or another I’ve been doing or advising on how to do research all week.

The focus of the stuff I’m sharing will be all about how micro and small businesses can do research or testing to bring their products, offers or services to life.

Enjoy!

Let’s talk research

Most research is just a conversation with another human.

Yet it’s something that people (me included), put off.  For me I think it’s because I’ve been doing research of some flavour constantly for the last 26 years.

The best products are designed using insights that businesses have had from the people who use them.

Don’t believe that’s true? Well, a certain Bill Gates didn’t believe in user research or usability testing.  Which explains why formatting a Word doc is harder than herding cats.

People often get scared of doing research, but ultimately, it’s the way you solve 90% of the problems you’re experiencing.

• Want to ditch corporate life and build one for yourself, but don’t know how to translate your skills? have a conversation with someone you’d like to work with
• Don’t know where your
• Don’t know who your product would be an ideal fit for? talk to people, build a profile
• People not engaging with your content? ask your people where they hang out online
• Want to know your product works before you try selling it? test it with people
• People not buying your product? ask them why not
• People dropping out of your offer / course? ask them what the problem is.

You get the idea, talk to the people, get the answers.

The thing is, there are so many different flavours of research, you might not know how to do it, or worry you’re doing it wrong.

Fear not, that’s what I’m here to help with.

What to do and when to do it?

As there’s so many different types of research you can do, I’m going to spread this out a bit.

To spice things up a bit, I’m going to start with something you should not do.

In the Unperfect Product space, I have banned Validation Testing.  I loathe the term so much I wrote a post about it.

The cult of validation

Emma Chittenden • Apr 24, 2022

Testing is fantastic. Trust me, I can still remember a time when we designed things that were never put in front of the people who would use them until it was live. The problem we seem to be having at the moment is that the desire to put something in front of people has become a tick box exercise.

Read full story →

What the f*ck is validation testing?

I don’t know which clever individual came up with this, but suspect it’s a tech bro thing.

Validation testing is where you take an idea, and you validate it.

Why it’s problematic

Valid is one of three possible outcomes when you’re testing an idea.

• Valid
• Invalid
• Unproven

So to say you’re going to do validation testing or you’re going to validate it means you’re introducing confirmation bias.

You’re also less likely to look at why something might be failing.  You’re not seeing things with open eyes and ears.  You’re looking for confirmation that your idea was right.

What I do instead?

Anyone working with me on their own Unperfect Product will do one (or more) of the following:

• Hypothesis testing
• Empathy mapping
• Market fit research

The type of conversation you have, depends on what outcome you want to get.  But these three will give you something more expansive than just a tick-box.

The language of research

I wrote a post a couple of years ago about the language of research and testing, to give you the words to talk about it.

The language of research and testing

Emma Chittenden • May 2, 2022

Consider this a prologue to talking about the four phases of testing. Before I go any further I’m going to share with you my taxonomy of testing. This is because the words we use tend to be used interchangeably but they have subtly different meanings.

Read full story →

Next week I’ll talk more about the different types of testing and when to do them.

I’ve been putting my money where my mouth is this week, and been talking to people who might use / buy Unperfect Products.  It’s been amazing to hear the products people are building, and the problems they’ve experienced.

This is the brief I put out on LinkedIn earlier this week, asking for help:

I'm currently testing this strategy to understand the product / market fit.

So, if you fit the following, I'd LOVE to talk with you about it, to help me understand my product.

• Are you a solo (micro) or small biz owner?
• Are you developing or recently launched a product / offer / course?
• Did you do the work on your own?

I'd love an hour of your time to share your insights of creating your product.

In return I'll give you an hour of my time for free to help you with anything product related.

And I’ve had a couple of people respond, which has been great.  So now I’m throwing it out to you amazing people.  Does this sound like you? would you be up for helping me out?

I’ll be sharing how I took the insights I gathered and used them to shape the end product.

Thin Slice Testing

While I’ve got you here, and I’m talking about research, I’d like to know a bit more about you, and what you’d like from the Thin Slice.  If you’ve got a couple of minutes, would you mind filling out the research survey?

The Thin Slice is only really awesome when people collaborate with it. To get this (thin) slice of awesome in your inbox, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This week I have largely failed to write a proposal for some work that I should have written last week.

I genuinely cannot get out of my own way to write it.  In fact I’m sat here writing this instead of writing the proposal.

I’ve also failed to get organised with a bit of structure around research.

Not getting these things sorted out has made me feel like I do when there’s clutter every where.  It kinda makes me itch a bit and I don’t feel so great.

I’ve also failed to do stand-up for three days this week. D’oh!

I’d love to know what you’ve failed at this week, and what you’ve learned from it, drop a note in the comments.

So I’d like to use the Parish Notices section to share cool things that the community are doing.  Think of it as a little like a space where you can hype things you’re working on.

So I think things like:

• Recruiting participants to help you with your research
• Product testers
• Product launches
• Events relevant to the parish

The reason? building products when you’ve never done it before is fluffing HARD without the help of your parish.  So consider this your parish to help you build your product.

If you’ve got something you’d like to ask for or shout about, drop me a mail or a DM and I’ll get you added.

This week, there’s one from me.

Unpossible: achieving more by being unperfect

I’m giving a talk, for free, hosted (virtually) by Barclays Eagle Labs.  It’s the first time I’m giving this talk, so come along and watch me be slightly unperfect and learn more about the process.

Book your ticket

Right, I’m off to do the thing I’ve been avoiding for the last week 🫣

Laters lovely humans!

Emma