Navigating Customer Discovery

When I have an idea my instinct is to immediately jump in. As I decided to take my latest project and turn it into a serious product I needed to change my mindset. I needed to spend more time understanding my potential customers and customers in general.

The Mobile Application World

Mobile applications thrive off repeated use. If an app doesn't keep a person coming back after the initial external stimulant that customer is lost forever. To better understand what gets people to continue using an app, you can look at every app that was ever made.

I did a customer discovery process with my father. He is not someone I have in mind to be a user of the application I am developing, but he uses his phone everyday and is a prime example of an application user.

I started with a basic question, I wanted to know what apps he uses in his daily routine. My dad likes to look at the news, read his emails, check stocks, goes on his banking apps, during football season he checks fantasy football, and he has been playing a mobile game. Next, I wanted to learn why he clicks on to certain apps. I made some interesting observations. My dad would watch or read news on stocks or fantasy football and then it would get him to then click on the app. Those were his external triggers and for the apps, they came completely free. He was on the app and using it.

Now, the app I really wanted to dive into before starting the conversation was the mobile game he played. I did not want to start on that app because there was more to be learned first. However, at the point of the conversation where it was time to dive deeper into the mobile game I hit the gold mine in at least what gets my dad to use an app.

He has been playing this game for nearly two years. Unlike other apps that pull you in when you feel a sense of boredom. This app has created internal triggers that build into your routine. You need to do specific actions at a certain time in the day. There is a weekly live portion of the app that only happens at that specific time. There are chats where people from all over the world communicate and some have even fostered real life friendships. I had to be very careful when approaching my dad with questions because I didn't want to assume anything. I wanted to learn what he does coming from him.

Here are some questions I asked.

What makes the app interesting to you?
What makes you go back on the app?
How does the dynamics with other players affect the way you use the app?
Do you see value in continuing to use the app?
How would you feel if you stopped using the app tomorrow?
What do you like about the community?

The things I discovered that I thought were brilliant.

You need to be on at 7 am and 7pm to recieve certain benefits, its in his routine
The weekly battle is live and collaborative. People in a tribe are playing real time with each other and actively communicating to win the battle
He has built an extremely good kingdom, it would feel wasteful if he stopped playing today
He finds the live chat to be entertaining to read, its almost a second social media for him
The app having an active community is a part that draws him back to the app day after day
When he goes on vacation for a week and doesn't play he forgets about the game mechanics. He is okay stopping play, but forgets how it works when he returns.
The app isn't full of active time, there is a lot of idle, the key is it requires a certain amount daily
The developers restricted purchasing power so organic accounts can still compete with pay-to-win accounts

Not all of this is directly related to what it is I am building, but my goal was understand triggers (what makes someone go on an app), habits, and long-term satisfaction. Some of the items we discussed can be applied to my own app.

Language Learning

This is a completely different world and the great thing is so many people have attempted language learning. The interesting thing I have been learning as I have talked to people that are learning second languages is the diversity in approaches taken. One of my friends has been learning Mandarin.

We were going on an hour long hike and he loves language and started from knowing something. A perfect person to probe and understand. This was an unscripted adventure so I don't remember the exact questions I asked and it turned more into an active brainstorm discussion based on our combined experience. I also learned some important things from him.

Right now, my challenge is I want to talk to people and stay in the language using creative workarounds when needed. What he voiced to me was his frustrastions with trying to speak that way. He would say something like "fire" + "work" to try and say firework, the native didn't get it. He finds at his level the only thing that is going to get him further is to just learn more vocabulary through spaced repetition. This is different than where I am at. I can't even give the creative workaround. I can't sit in a conversation. He can. The important note here is different stages of the learning journey will require different tools.

Another interesting thing I learned from him. He was under constant exposure. He played Mahjong, a famous tile board game, twice a week with his Chinese friends. They would become his battleground to use what he has been learning. It also continued to deepen his motivation to learn. A real life social dynamic is what pushed him to keep learning not just a high five from an app on his phone.

This dynamic is also what got him from words in his head to talking. He could say some comment he learned in Mandarin after completing a move. He might hear an exchange he understood and provide a comment. He is practicing his listening comprehension during that enture night. An app cannot replicate this.

Motivation. This is probably the single most integral part in determining if someone will learn a language or not. Apps like Duolingo try to create this artificially through gamification. Points, streaks, bonuses all to keep you coming back. Notice though, this is extremely shallow. What happens when your streak ends. What happens when the angry owl no longer motivates you. You stop learning. The motivation is a small surface layer that the app tried building for you once it locked you in through an external trigger.

How This Helps Me Shape The Product Differently

I only gave a taster of the customer discovery that I am doing and realistically, I am not doing it perfectly. The important distinction is I am taking the net average of everything I am learning and seeing what best fits my own app and trying to apply it. A slight advantage I have is I am the user. I don't need to try and understand the feedback someone else is giving me based on the emotions they felt using it since I can feel it myself.

I also have a slighly different objective than most companies. Yes, I want this to be a successful product, but not while taking advantage of my customer. I want the customer to only be on this app until they no longer need it. Perhaps it will have long term retention benefits for continued practice, but my goal is not for someone to hang out with AI, but to use the learned skills to talk to friends, family, and the culture. The dating app motto of designed to be deleted which none seem to uphold is what I want for this app. I'm not building this app so I can stay on it forever, I want it to get me to a point where I am comfortable talking in the language. After that its conversation practice and learning more vocabulary. The biggest gap in the market in my opinion is no app is focused on building the necessary beginner vocabulary plus verbal communication skills to get off the couch go to the country and have a conversation with a local.

That is my apps objective.