At Startup Life, we rarely interview founders pre-launch. However, Nikian Aghababaie, the founder of Redwood — a platform for finding your next housemate — caught my attention at Intersectional Incredibles Forum, a recent conference focused on LGBTQ+ and immigrant founders.
Nikian explains that he conceived the idea after moving a lot, especially between the UK and the US: “Platforms like Spareroom in the UK and Craigslist in the US leave much to be desired. When it comes to platforms focused on niche markets, particularly the LGBTQ+ community, solutions can seem unsafe and questionable. You want to feel safe and understood. With entire generations unlikely to afford their own home, rethinking lifelong renting is essential.”
Disrupting the rental market requires significant resources. “I don’t have wealthy connections who I could have raised a friends and family round from — we see it branded all over LinkedIn as the first step of the startup journey, but that’s just not an option for a lot of minority founders.” Instead, Nikian has been building a community under a secondary brand, Queer Housemates, to prove the concept in preparation for Redwood’s pre-seed fundraise.
Here are his top tips.
Build a community
You need to build trust with your audience if you want to sell them something as personal as who they live with. For us, the LGBTQ+ community needed support finding housemates they could trust. They weren’t immediately going to trust a new tech platform — there’s a lot of wariness around anything that feels corporate — so we needed to create deeper connections with them. We started a community called Queer Housemates to host in-person events and have touchpoints with our customers. Don’t overlook in-person interactions, even for a digital product. They can be invaluable for building loyalty and love. You’re able to learn a lot compared to digital avenues because of the 1:1 conversation with users. You also build a pipeline for future product launches.
Observe your competitors
What have they done well now or in the past that your audience has loved? Why did it work well for them? What were the pitfalls? Is there anyone you can speak to from there who would be willing to share learnings? Spareroom used to run mixers to help people find a flatmate. This inspired our queer mixer evenings for LGBTQ+ people looking for new housemates.
Use adverts to prove your concept
Advertise your events and community on social media. For example, we used paid advertising on Instagram. We targeted those looking for housing-related content in the LGBTQ+ space, achieving a minimum 3% click-through rate. Think creatively — where else does your community exist? We ran ads on Grindr, which proved even more effective, with an 11% click-through rate to our events. For reference, most marketers would be happy with 0.7%.
Find out where your audience is
Finding where your community exists is crucial.
- Do they have WhatsApp groups?
- Do they attend specific meetups?
- Is there a Facebook page or a Slack community?
- Is there a newsletter people follow?
Find these points of contact and share your minimum viable product (MVP) with them. Remember to keep your communication style as “grassroots” — you don’t want to go barging in like a corporate. You will probably get thrown out.
Analyse your audience
Learn what your community wants. Use the “five whys” technique (iteratively asking why to determine the root cause of a problem) to delve deep into the pain points and experiences of your target audience. This method will help you uncover the pain and the journey your users currently face and provide you with justification for your product.
You also want to understand what they’re gaining from your MVP. Identify and track a few key metrics, even if it’s a very manual job. For us, it was people telling us they’d met a potential housemate or new friend at one of our mixers.
Be honest with your community
You may or may not have told your community at the beginning that you’re building a product. When you are ready, it’s important to gradually introduce your product. Keep the community at the heart of your development process and engage with them to understand their needs and preferences. Ask them what they do and don’t like, what they think is missing, what they love… Allow your initial idea to evolve based on community feedback.
Choose the tech you use carefully
If you have a simple app or site, no-code and low-code solutions can help build a proof of concept to take to market and test. If your idea is more complex, you might be better off building your proprietary tech instead. There’s also the question of IP — if you’re using a no-code platform like Bubble, you don’t own all of your tech, which could be detrimental when trying to raise VC cash.
Also, figure out exactly what tech you need. Are you just jumping on a hype train, like AI, to appeal to investors or does it add value to your product? AI used at the wrong time or place can turn off customers.
Finally, don’t stop working
Having money to support you as you build an MVP to test your concept is essential. It’ll allow you to test extensively and build properly without financial pressure. If you don’t have a wealthy network, there are other ways to support your startup endeavours. Freelance on the side, get a part-time job and apply for grants — we got an Innovate UK grant which changed the game for us and got the ball rolling with our fundraising.
On the subject of… proof of concepts
1. How to find product-market fit. Here are the signs you’ve nailed it.
2. How to build an MVP. From YC’s Startup School.
3. Product-market fit isn’t just about customers. You’re also, potentially, selling a financial product to investors (equity for cash).
4. Raising pre-seed funding. What do you do once you’ve proved your concept?
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/how-to-prove-your-concept/
