InstantPay: Micro-Commitment Pre-Sales for Solo Founders

tbh I found the opposite... talking to users before building anything just gave me analysis paralysis. I ended up building a rough MVP in a weekend and learning faster from real user complaints than from hours of interviews. Sometimes you just need to ship the ugly thing to find out what actually hurts.

I just attended an activitation event that cost me 5k to have a stand. The event had 20,000 people with potential target personas in attendance across a weekend. I spoke with over 500 people who tested a live demo and validated many assumptions around pain points my product solved, but none of them felt urgency for the product (i.e. they did not feel compelled to pay even the $70 per year subscription. I failed to generate leads or a single sale from the event (except some book sales). Also given I was on my own, I missed a lot of people as the sheer volume of patrons flowed like water. Also given I had touchscreen kiosk instead of a physical observable touchable product. I had nothing that made people want to stop. The initial concept for what I have been building came out of a TechStars Startup event, and it has taken me since 2023 to get to this point of launching at the event. But in the early days I spoke with stakeholders, conducted interviews to validate assumptions, iterated based on various feedback of the MVP. It's only early days, so with some modifying, adjusting and adapting and bending the universe or the product, I expect I will find product market fit. I think the biggest thing is... identifying the biggest pain point your target persona has. You need to solve that almost immediately when someone engages your product or service. People want quick solutions to real problems. My current implementation fails to deliver immediate results, it delivers value and saves time and money over years, and most don't think in those terms. Everyone is chasing instant gratitude and play in the now (micro), consumers rarely think about the bigger picture of their lives (the macro).

I just attended an activitation event that cost me 5k to have a stand. The event had 20,000 people with potential target personas in attendance across a weekend. I spoke with over 500 people who tested a live demo and validated many assumptions around pain points my product solved, but none of them felt urgency for the product (i.e. they did not feel compelled to pay even the $70 per year subscription. I failed to generate leads or a single sale from the event (except some book sales). Also given I was on my own, I missed a lot of people as the sheer volume of patrons flowed like water. Also given I had touchscreen kiosk instead of a physical observable touchable product. I had nothing that made people want to stop. The initial concept for what I have been building came out of a TechStars Startup event, and it has taken me since 2023 to get to this point of launching at the event. But in the early days I spoke with stakeholders, conducted interviews to validate assumptions, iterated based on various feedback of the MVP. It's only early days, so with some modifying, adjusting and adapting and bending the universe or the product, I expect I will find product market fit. I think the biggest thing is... identifying the biggest pain point your target persona has. You need to solve that almost immediately when someone engages your product or service. People want quick solutions to real problems. My current implementation fails to deliver immediate results, it delivers value and saves time and money over years, and most don't think in those terms. Everyone is chasing instant gratitude and play in the now (micro), consumers rarely think about the bigger picture of their lives (the macro).