This stage is the moment when your expectations collide with reality. Predictions about how the market will accept you are tested through the prism of real customer needs.
To avoid unexpected complications, it is better to conduct castdev at the stage of developing a business idea. This is a series of in-depth interviews with potential clients, which is especially important if your product or service is non-standard.
Castdev is a qualitative research method that allows you to test hypotheses. For example, you can find out whether the shoe cleaning service will be in demand at a dry cleaner.
In-depth interviews can be divided iran phone data into contextual, problematic and solution-oriented. The optimal way to study the market and niche is to conduct mixed contextual-problem interviews. Their main goal is to understand the market from the customers’ perspective, identify their problems and what solutions they expect.
Ideally, it is recommended to conduct at least 50 interviews.
Step 3: Research consumer demand
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It is not recommended to start with questions about problems - this will not give an objective idea. It is important to study the context first. If you are going to open a beauty salon, ask respondents the following:
what motivates them to use beauty services;
how often do they visit salons: time and place of the last visit;
what are the current costs of services, how do they assess the cost: overpriced, underpriced or adequate;
what they value and what causes dissatisfaction in the salons they visit;
why they chose these particular salons, what is important to them, what do they pay attention to first of all;
If you switched to another salon, what was the reason for such a change.
During the interview, questions and problems may arise that clients solve when they contact a beauty salon. For example:
adjust your bangs so they don't get into your eyes;
choose an image for a photo shoot with a professional photographer;
take an hour for personal rest and relaxation.
Such tasks and problems are called “jobs” that the client solves with your product — jobs to be done (JTBD). It is important to listen carefully to respondents. For example, a client may think that his motivation to visit a barbershop is only a haircut, but his story may show that in fact he values the atmosphere of the club and comes there to socialize.
The key outcome of custom development at this stage will be a set of problems and their understanding:
how often do these problems occur;
what is the importance expressed in terms of pain intensity or how often clients experience these problems;
whether each problem blocks the possibility of further interaction with the client. For example, after a negative experience with regular furniture dry cleaning, the client may refuse this service in the future;
the costs of solving the problem on both sides: how much you need to invest to achieve a competitive advantage, how much customers are willing to pay for the service on an ongoing basis.