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Hey Reader,
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8 months.

That's how long the good-for-nothing idea fairy took to leave an idea under my pillow for me to work with. I am grateful, but I’ll have to slide her a few crisp bank notes next time to speed up the process.

But you know what, I’ll take it.

For my first product idea, I documented all the problems I encountered daily for a week.
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One kept resurfacing.

Last September, I moved to a new residential community. Before this, I lived in an apartment.

In this apartment, I didn’t know any of my neighbours.
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Not their names, how they looked, or the sound of their voice, nada. They could have been Captain Jack Sparrow, Ronald Macdonald or Hedwig, Harry Potter’s owl. I had no clue.

There weren’t many opportunities to interact, and there was no culture of knocking on doors to introduce yourself.

Excuses, excuses…I know.

So, of course, I wanted this time to be different. I was thrilled to rub shoulders, break bread and laugh boisterously with these new neighbours. To feel a warm embrace and sense of community.

I know you know that feeling.
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Lemme tell you, I daydreamed about exchanging stories over afternoon tea, Saturday trips to the farmers market, and Sunday brunches. Also, I was excited to teach them to play my favourite card game, Kalookie, which I play with my friends. I am always ready to cultivate new friendships.

You name it, I dreamt it. I am a sucker for intimate and hilarious friendships. It's my weakness.

I’m confident you can guess what happened next.
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No Sunday brunches, Kalookie or laughing so hard our lungs collapsed. Relations have only skimmed the surface.

Loneliness ensued.

This issue was always there, breathing in my ear when I brushed my teeth and sitting across from me at every meal.

Don’t get me wrong. There have been bright smiles, pleasantries, minor life updates, sharing garden tips and the occasional walk. But no blossoming friendships.

I had an idea.

If it worked in my community, I figured I could make it a product that other communities could use. The first step was to find out if my neighbours felt the same.

Was loneliness breathing down their neck, too?

Or was its breath barely felt behind the layers of life's distractions?

I posted in the community Facebook group, and the post got a decent amount of feedback.

I got right to it.

I created a Google form as my MVP, the simplest thing I could create to test the problem. It collected some details, allowing me to create a simple intro email when manually matching folks.

I got a whopping 4 sign-ups out of 150 people from the FB group.

Not bad. Enough to run a test. The 3 meet-ups included home tours, walks and popsicles. I posted 2 more times, hoping for more sign-ups.

However, all I received was the echo of virtual crickets.

Also, the folks that met never followed up with each other after their first meeting. Which was my goal, to spark something that would continue without prompting.

As much as I wanted this to work, it clearly wasn’t a pain point for my neighbours.

I could have tried in other communities. However, that wasn’t going to solve the connection problem with my neighbours.

I’ll continue to try with my neighbours in other ways. However, my focus now is on my current friends and on other groups where I am getting connections, albeit virtual.

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Here are 2 things I learned from this experience:​
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1. Within failures often lie hidden victories

Though I did not solve my original problem, this exercise solved another problem: I overcame the fear of prospecting and doing customer conversations.

The absolute horror I felt the day I posted about this idea in my community FB group made the hairs on my neck stand up so sharply they could cut you.

I gritted my teeth, took a breath so deep I sucked the air out of the room and pressed the big blue 'post' button. Since then (3 months ago), I have reached out to dozens of people without fear or hesitation.
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That single, anxious press of the 'post' button squashed my fear and unlocked confidence within.

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2. Mouths are made to say anything

People will say positive things and mislead you to protect your feelings.

I saw firsthand the importance of rapid prototyping to distinguish between polite encouragement and tangible demand. Before diving headfirst into creating a fully-fledged product—a mistake I've made previously.

The Google form took me 10 mins to create, and I used it to demonstrate that this was not an issue for this group in less than 1 hour total.

Here are 2 books I highly recommend on the topic of rapid prototyping and conducting effective customer interviews:

Speak directly with prospects early, simplify your MVP, and refine based on real-world feedback.

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Snack for thought

Throughout this process of experimentation, I've learned that even missteps and failures offer opportunities for unexpected growth and invaluable insights. With that wisdom, I encourage you to throw yourself into experimentation. There is as much value in the attempt as the accomplishment.

So, what's your next experiment?

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