Make your users do something hard

So I woke up to three declined zoom meetings in my inbox, which is the validation I wished I had 5 weeks ago.

My software product is averaging 10-15 signups a day, people are engaged, but my conversion rate is staying low. And I was convinced that since I had a few paying customers, I could just work on paid features and website copy to get more people to upgrade.

My problem was being comfortable with what could be called “soft validation” - people being excited about the idea on social media, Slack + Discord, and people putting their email addresses down to sign up. Soft validation feels good because it’s easy. But it’s not real.

Real validation comes from making users do hard things. Like putting a credit card down, or showing up to a 15-minute meeting. It sounds counter-intuitive because you’ll probably scare off people who would’ve just put their email down. But it separates the signal from the noise and tells you how superficial or real the pain point your product is solving for is.

So that’s how I got here. I took my new functionality and put it behind a Calendly link, and then waited. A few zoom meetings popped up, which made me feel great. But then they canceled, so I’m now realizing exactly what kind of problem I’m solving.

It’s not a dealbreaker either. The “nice to have but if I’m cutting back/canceling my subscriptions you’ll be one of the first to go” products can still enjoy solid growth, you just have to cast a wider net and likely deal with lower conversion rates.

So my main takeaway here is to as early as possible, make your users jump through some sort of hoop to figure out what type of pain your solving. Because even if you get many enthusiastic tweets and positive emails, those things are easy. Aim for fewer easy wins and more truth.