Customer Discovery

This past week we conducted nine customer discovery interviews where we talked to people we didn't know and found out if they have the problem we're solving. We got their ideas on the solution and got feedback from them on our solution which will help us build The Local Rocket into a place that people will want to go. Here's how the interviews went for each of the team members.

Hunter’s Interviews

1. Michael was the first person I had to guts to sit down beside just outside of Showker Hall.
Michael is a Senior and will graduate soon with his accounting degree. Michael agreed that the
problem of not having all the options on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights was an issue. He
stated he and his buddies usually checked Facebook or decided from a small handful of ideas.
He said they didn’t go many places because they didn’t know really what else to do so they
only went to a few locations. His solutions were to find better ways for advertising for bars,
more events advertised some way, radio ads, newspaper ads or campus ads. He then stated
advertising and gaining awareness was needed but the best solution was unclear. After telling
him our solution he agreed with the website. Said he would definitely check it out, liked the
convenience of the site, and liked the recreational idea. Also, no music, not too flashy, and most
importantly have a taxi service for the site.

2. Kristin a young woman for the Leesburg area I met on the sidewalk near the football stadium.
Kristin also agreed she has the problem up in Leesburg and spends time riding around looking
for something to do. She too used friends and Facebook. Her solution was to drive around, look
for signs near or around town, use word to mouth and other ideas. After telling her our plan
she agreed on the restaurant deals, fun events, sports, etc. She also gave the idea of adding job
listings on our site. Also, with holidays and times of the year do something exciting on the site.
Mostly she liked the job listings and restaurant deals.

3. Patrick was a freshman I met in Showker Hall. Patrick was new to the area, lived on campus,
and was not familiar with the surrounding area. He found our problem to hold true and again
did what his friends were doing without being aware of what was going on around Harrisonburg.
He was the only one to suggest an internet based site for deals. He also wanted a way for
coupons. After giving him our solution, he said he agreed. He liked the deals aspect but mostly
liked the on campus draw to the solution. Anything on campus drew his attention by him being
new to the area.

After conducting the three interviews a lot was learned. All three people agreed
they had the problem our group was trying to solve. Also, I got feedback from a senior, a
freshman, and someone from 2 hours away. The addition of the job listings and taxi services
was great, as well as the emphasis on keeping campus related issues on the site as well. I not
only got good feedback, but learned a lot about myself too. I am horrible when it comes to
finding people I don’t know, sitting down with them, and getting good quality information out.
I need to learn from this experience if I want to be good at interviews in the future and even
dealing with customers.

Bertrand's Interviews

I conducted three customer discovery interviews:

 - One local (not a jmu student)

- One jmu student (underage)

- One business owner (bowling alley)

Conducting interviews with three different types of customers was useful in order to have different types of opinion.

The interview with the local taught me that they have less of a need for informations about what is going on in Harrisonburg. Locals usually have their own habits. They goes to certain places and are well informed about what is going on there. However, the local admitted that looking at our website could help them have more diversity in what they do and enjoy the events that the JMU population brings to the city.

The interview with an underage student from JMU was also valuable. He was very interest by our website confirming that it can be a struggle to know what is going on in Harrisonburg: "We always hear about 21+ places but considering that I am not 21, it is frustrating. I wish that i would know where I can go at night as an 18+ student. Most of the students are underage and i think that it would be very hepful to have an 18+ category added to the website for those students.

The last discovery interview was conducted with the owner of a bowling alley. He said that our technology was very interesting. He think that it is a great idea considering that businesses like his have trouble to market their product in Harrisonburg. "Some nights, the bowling alley is empty, I wish i could bring customers with night specials". His customers are mostly locals and it would be great for him to get JMU students in. The ability to advertise events on the side bar was an important feature for him. We will create this advertisement feature in the next couple days in addition to the map.

Mike's Interviews

Before I started my interviews, I wanted to get an idea of what things might be popular for things to do. I used google trends to see how popular searching for common activities. Restaurants came out on top, but the results showed something more. It allowed me to see the cyclical nature of these search terms which means we can focus on the activities that get more popular at a certain time of year. For example, movie theater searches gets more popular during the summer and near the end of the year. Searches for 'things to do' steadily increase all year until what looks like the start of the school period in August/September. Knowing this data will give us an idea of when and where to focus our efforts. Now, onto the interviews.

The first person I interviewed was Bon, who is a senior computer science major here at JMU. He agreed he had the problem of finding stuff to do, and often sat around his apartment with his roommates with no idea of where to go that night. He said though, it's an even bigger problem when he doesn't know where to take his girlfriend. Right now he talks to his friends to see what's out there, but outside of his regular spot, he's not sure where he could go. He really like the idea of a website that could centralize that information and give him all of his options in one place. He really liked the idea of reviews, because he didn't want to go anywhere that didn't have positive reviews from other people. He said he would mostly use it for restaurants and that it would be good to know what places delivered and what specials were going on. He verified that if he goes on there and sees deals, that he's more likely to go to those places with deals. Information like this will really help us win over advertisers.

Next I interviewed Bradley, a senior SMAD major. He agreed that he often had the problem of figuring out what to do - almost every weekend. His current solution was to talk to friends, but he didn't use Facebook to find things to do which was interesting. He liked our solution and said to make sure to put as much as possible on it and that he would most likely use it.

Lastly I interviews Alex, who is a history major at JMU. He said that he rarely doesn't know what he wants to do at night, but he would like to find out more options of things to do. Right now he uses emails (like from JMU) to find out about events. He liked the idea of our solution and thought it would be good to help him find out more things. He said to keep it organized and easy to use, and it could really help people find out deals they have never hear of before (like $1 beer at Napoli - he had just found out about through friends).

Based on all of the interviews, I think we're in a relatively good spot. We've gotten a lot of good feedback, so hopefully we'll be able to turn that into a site that people love to use and come back to often. Until next time...