For sometime now, we’ve made it a habit to run at least one survey every last week of the month. This practice has helped in shaping almost every thing we do at myPadi.ng.
Our survey for October was borrowed from the “Hacking Growth” book by Sean Ellis and Morgan. As part of measures for growth, Sean recommended that every startup should perform what he termed the “must-have survey”. This according to him is a reliable means of measuring whether customers love a product or not. For me, this was a good thing to do especially now that we reflect on what has worked and what didn’t since the beginning of the year.
The responses we got from the survey were exciting but more importantly directed our focus on critical parts of the business we had not paid much attention to — you will find out shortly but first, the excitement.
The Excitement
The “must-have” survey starts with the question:
It is exciting to see that 54.5% of the respondents will be “Very Disappointed” should we close shop. According to Sean, if 40% or more of the responses are “very disappointed,” then the product has achieved sufficient must-have status, which means the green light to move full speed ahead gunning for growth. We were even more pumped up when we discovered that 75.8% of the respondents had recommended our product at one time or another.
Learnings
More than the excitement of product acceptance was the learnings we got from the responses to other questions we asked. Just after the first question, we asked:
How will you find a hostel if we no longer exist?
a) Call friends of friends (39.4%)
b) Look for Agents (45.5%)
c) Walk around campus (33.3%)
d) Google (3%)
Option B
That students would look for agents as the first means to hostel hunting further reminded us of our major “competitors” — Agents and not even existing similar platforms. The realization of this has forced us to begin to look at ways to either collaborate or reinforce some decency at the very least, to the haphazard long-chain-agent system.
It is no news that the agent system of connecting house seekers with a long chain of other agents to the landlord has caused many a lot of money due to the many large “agent fees” they often require. This is a thing we’re committed to fixing. As a matter of fact, more than 80% of listings on our platform are from landlords and the rest from direct agents.
Option A
For 39.4% of the persons we asked, calling friends of friends was an ideal alternative. This for us is a clear indication that students are more likely to stay in a place recommended by a friend. You may be quick to say its an obvious truth but how a product goes about getting people to recommend her service isn’t as quick as that. We have started with a revamp of our invite system that rewards students for inviting others to rent. In the weeks to follow, we’ll drive this and find out how much effect it will have on metrics.
Option C
Walking around campus had 33.3% of the responses. This is a clear reminder to engage in more aggressive offline marketing as even advised by some persons in the survey.
Option D
The almighty Google had a paltry response of 3%. But even as Google wouldn’t come as a first thought for majority of them, it is still very much important to optimize for searches as students often search for admission, school fees payment, etc.
But what is more important?
In a video I did sometime ago, I argued that that even as focus is important, focusing on the right thing is a do or die affair. In the must-have survey, we needed to also find out what exactly we do that matters most so as to hyper focus on it. We asked:
Which of these are more important to you that we do?
a) Paying rent small small
b) Easy searching of hostels
c) Free Medicals for students
d) No agent fees
e) Campus Ambassador program
d) Earning N1,000 by inviting others
You can use the comment section to bare your mind on which is more important.
In part 2 of this article, I’ll share what we’ve learnt from the responses to this question and others and how it redirects our focus especially on product development.
In the meantime, see if running the must-have survey makes sense to you and if you have already, kindly share in the comments what you figured out.