Experiments
How testing a hypothesis can lead to customer satisfaction.
For a startup, being agile is essential. Being agile here means working in a lightweight and highly responsive way so that you deliver your product or services in the way the customer wants and at that time the customer needs them. Now as an early-stage startup tries to be agile, it comes across a few questions like:
Which customer opinions should we listen to, if any? How should we prioritize across the many features we could build? What can be changed safely, and what might anger customers? and the list goes on. Many startups try to answer these answers using market research and conducting surveys but considering the unpredictable nature of a startup, it may not be very useful. For instance, if you are creating a product or service which has never been sold or used by the customers then you will not be able to find the exact numbers and data about market sizing, pricing strategy, consumer behaviour, etc. This is where experimentation comes into the picture.
A true experiment by a startup follows the scientific methods. It begins with a clear hypothesis that makes predictions. It then tests those predictions empirically by building a product albeit a simple one. Experimenting gives a lot of essential information to the startup which cannot be determined by market research or conducting a survey.
Experimentation helps to find more accurate data about customer demand because it provides real customer behaviour which cannot be determined from asking hypothetical questions in surveys.
Experimentation puts a startup in a position to interact with real customers and thus provide unexpected information and challenges about customer behaviour which the startup never even thought of, as you are directly interacting with them.
Experimentation also provides a startup to gain validated learning. If a startup’s hypothesis is false, it learns about which assumption was false and by how much. It can then quickly change its product and again test a new hypothesis based on its previous findings and thus provide validated learning.
WEEKLY ROUNDUP
📹 Creators, Influencers Turn Angel Investors: From comedians to influencers to YouTubers — creators of all kinds are now jumping on the startup investment bandwagon, which reflects the changing dynamics between consumers and content makers.
🛩️ Wisk transportation: The reality of self-flying air taxis may be a step closer after this week, as Mountain View, California-based Wisk closed a $450 million funding round from The Boeing Co.
🧑🎓 IIT Alumni Startup behind 1,000-drone show developed tech in just 6 months: Botlab Dynamics, led by IIT alumni, was given an initial seed fund of Rs 1 crore for R&D and subsequently, Rs 25 crore for scale-up and commercialisation by the science & technology ministry's technology development board for the first-of-its-kind technological project in the country
📚 Teachmint acquires MyClassCampus to expand its offerings for schools & institutes globally: Teachmint, an education infrastructure startup, has announced the acquisition of MyClassCampus, an educational ERP player, which enables campuses with end-to-end digitisation of their operations, management and communication.
💰Funding Galore:
🚚 The week’s highest funding was received by food delivery aggregator Swiggy, receiving a cheque of $700 Mn, which helped the Bengaluru-based startup and a rival to the listed Zomato valuation soar to over $10 Bn.
🦄 The week also saw the rise of well-anticipated DealShare turning into a unicorn after closing $165 Mn funding led by Tiger Global at $1.62 Bn valuations.
🛵 Ola Electric has raised $200 million in a new round from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others. With this, the company has mopped up $400 million in the past five months and its valuation soared to $5 billion.
🇮🇳 The Indian startup ecosystem has raised around $1.9 Bn across 67 deals in the fourth week of 2022.
That’s all for this week!