I believe Google search is the heaven for user needs analysis and validation. Understanding user needs is the core task before and while building great products.
User needs – this is what makes the difference between successful products and not so successful products.
Products that solve real needs
If you build something that no-one needs, you need to start to build something that someone needs.
This is the basic ABC of the startup world.
Though this is still the number 1 reason why startups fail.
Because of that we are thinking a lot about how to reduce early product adoption failure.
As a company that mainly holds knowledge on 2 areas: User acquisition and building products we pretty much focus all our effort around that.
Google Search helps to find user needs
One tool that helps us explore User needs is Google Search.
When done right Google search is one of the ideal starting points for launching startups.
With the MAC fit Framework we look into following:
Message
Audience
Channel
This mix of variables is what makes or breaks your early startup user acquisition.
Meaning you need to formulate the correct problem / solution / offer for the right audience through the right medium (like a post on medium.com).
Otherwise you won’t get customers.
But the MAC fit can do more.
Validate if a need exists
The MAC fit is as well an ideal way to validate if a specific need exists.
The reason why is because people leave traces of evidence when they want to solve a problem.
One of these evidences is google search history.
The heaven of User Research should be to be able to look into what searches a specific potential user did around the researched topic.
In other words: It would be amazing if you could check if a user searches for a problem that you want to solve.
Why is that: Basically because you will stop waisting time trying to build and sell solutions for problems that are non existing.
And guess what – this is the business model of nearly all highly valued user acquisition companies:
Collecting data of what a user is trying to solve at a specific time.
This data is being sold back to you as a means to advertise to this user.
But what if we could get this data, without needing to pay Google, Facebook or whatever other User acquisition company there is out there?
When getting user needs right
It would be amazing.
We would stop building and offering products no-one wants.
We would stop blind guessing
We would stop burning hundred of millions of VC money on stuff that is not working.
We would start to make informed decisions.
We would just be faster in building our products.
We would start with a better version of our existing product development cycle.
One easy first approach of seeing if your idea has a need in the market is by typing in the problem / solution area you are trying to solve.
