Customer development ain’t cheap

New bootstrapped startup?

Building a new app?

Ready your credit card.

Back of the envelope costs

• Surveys to your target market $1000
• Starbucks focus groups and usability tests: $200
• Buy 1000 quality users to your new app $2000
• x 5 rounds of product iteration = $16,000

Based on

• $1 per response x 5 questions x 200 qualified respondents 
• $20 coupons x 10 people (random & Craigslist arranged)
• $2 targeted CPI x 1000 users

Conclusions

• If you’re running lean, early on it’s probably your biggest cost
• Good news: still cheaper than months of wasted design & dev effort 

Footnote

• Chances are you’ll need multiple iterations (maybe it’s just me)
• Figures excludes dev, launch marketing, hosting, pizza etc.
• Asking friends for feedback is cheap, but biased 
• You’ll 1000s of users to test LTV in a freemium product

Question - is there a cheaper way?

What’s your take?  or let me know on