[HN Gopher] Validating your ideas on strangers (2017)
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Validating your ideas on strangers (2017)
Author : tacon
Score : 52 points
Date : 2025-10-24 16:48 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (jeremyaboyd.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jeremyaboyd.com)
| chacham15 wrote:
| This only works when strangers = target customer because there is
| no way a stranger would have the understanding of the pain you
| are relieving for someone when they dont feel that pain.
| Therefore, it can be better read as "validate your ideas on your
| target customer" which is kind of obvious.
| zkmon wrote:
| Actually, you can try seeking out your own brutally honest
| opinion about your own idea. Act like a stingy investor or a
| totally down-to-earth common man. You should quickly write down
| the terse half-line questions that your real childish inner self
| spits out, before they are drowned by the pitch from your refined
| outer-self.
| vntok wrote:
| At this point, why not simply order an LLM to roast the idea,
| acting as "the arch-enemy of the pitcher" or something akin to
| that?
| whycombinetor wrote:
| I'm sure the patrons at dive bars love businesspeople walking up
| and asking you to listen to their startup idea or review their
| designs for a corporate rebranding.
| Swizec wrote:
| > patrons at dive bars love businesspeople walking up and
| asking you to listen to their startup idea
|
| Honestly why 10 years ago in SF I stopped telling people I'm a
| software engineer when we chat at a bar. It was relentless.
| politelemon wrote:
| > private, albeit very loud, conversation
|
| Please don't do what this post says. As someone at a bar I would
| appreciate you leaving me alone without me having to assert my
| right to a private conversation.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Weeeeell, as someone else at a bar, I wouldn't mind some
| negative pressure on the private but very loud conversation
| style.
| jll29 wrote:
| You might want to limit this to geek-frequented bars in Silicon
| Valley only, as it is using strangers for your own financial
| benefits without reimbursing them for their feedback.
|
| Also consider that disclosing your work in public means
| subsequent attempts to patent anything are toast (unless each
| stranger signs you an NDA first).
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _Also consider that disclosing your work in public means
| subsequent attempts to patent anything are toast (unless each
| stranger signs you an NDA first)._
|
| Are you suggesting that people trying to have a drink are going
| to rush out and patent something based on what some asshole was
| trying to drunkenly describe to them?
| bluGill wrote:
| propably not but you never know.
| willguest wrote:
| when he asks you about his new idea for an app, just pretend you
| didn't hear him. if we all do it, eventually he'll leave
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| If you try this, be prepared for the bartender to tell you to
| stop hassling the customers, or to cut straight to the part where
| they kick you out of the bar.
| vntok wrote:
| A great shortcut to get banned by the bartender because patrons
| have told them you're harassing and/or soliciting. Bonus points
| if you try to make your case to the bouncer.
| sublinear wrote:
| It should be made clearer that this is from 2017.
|
| I can only speak from my own experience that both the tech scene
| and bar scene have changed dramatically.
| retrocog wrote:
| 100%
| Lerc wrote:
| This is like sending an unsolicited email to someone who might
| want to buy your product.
|
| A single instance is not a bad thing, but once it becomes a
| repeated occuance it is terrible.
|
| With this particular case, the threshold is likely to be in
| expectation. If you approach people and any of them are aware of
| this concept in advance, they might feel used. If they know what
| you are going to do before you start talking then the entire
| atmosphere has already been polluted.
|
| It might be easier to think of it in ecological terms.
| Sustainability and limiting harms mark the core of what should
| govern human endeavours. If the bar was considered an ecological
| environment, the harm would be in negatively impacting the
| enjoyment of customers. A single query from a stranger might do
| no harm. It might even enrich their evening experience. Done
| unsustainably however, results in a progressive reduction in the
| quality of experience across the ecosystem.
| saulpw wrote:
| Yeah, notice that the "inspiration" for this tactic was a
| designer who interrupted their loud conversation. He read the
| room and realized these guys were spitballing business ideas
| and took advantage of their drunken egos to get some Man On The
| Street opinions. That all seems fine. The problem comes when
| you start doing it to people who aren't talking loudly about
| their own stupid business ideas.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > This is like sending an unsolicited email to someone who
| might want to buy your product.
|
| It's worse than that. It's interrupting people who are trying
| to enjoy their night out and demanding they review your
| homework for you.
|
| If people don't flat out tell you to go away, they're going to
| try to make up something simple as quick as possible to fulfill
| your task in the hopes that it will make you leave them alone.
| bloodyplonker22 wrote:
| One guy at our company once had this brilliant idea as well. Go
| to a bar and validate the idea with strangers. After all, our
| business idea was related to sports and they would surely be
| interested. I thought this was a great idea. All three of us
| agreed it was. Later that night, in high spirits, we went to the
| bar to execute our plan. We sat at the bar for two hours and
| talked to a grand total of zero people because we were all afraid
| to approach anyone and bother him or her about our frivolous,
| idiotic idea.
| yard2010 wrote:
| People would use it for sex.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Teens will use anything for sex.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This is a 2017 blog post. It's a throwback to earlier hustle
| culture writings, before writing like this on LinkedIn became a
| pop culture meme.
|
| Like most of the hustle culture writing, it's based on a single
| experience that may or may not have actually happened: The author
| approached someone in a bar and had a conversation, and now
| they're preaching this method as some groundbreaking business
| technique.
|
| Cold approaches like this are not, in my opinion, a good idea if
| you want valid feedback. When you approach random people in a bar
| and interrupt them with some request, many people will go into
| defensive mode where they try to tell you what you want to hear
| to de-escalate and get you to go away.
|
| Note their reaction:
|
| > Their reaction was notably disturbed!
|
| The author noticed they didn't appreciate his question but
| pressed on anyway, demanding they give him some feedback. Many
| people will play along for a few minutes and try to deliver
| something that fulfills the request and lets them get away from
| the situation.
|
| That doesn't mean it's good advice. Like most hustle culture
| writing pieces, I don't think this advice to go to bars and
| interrupt random people and demand their feedback is a good idea.
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| I've been working on a few ideas in my free time for several
| years, and I'm also a frequent bar visitor. I live in a central
| part of a European city that is quite tourist-heavy, and I
| don't have a problem talking to strangers, whether they're
| locals or tourists. I never initiate discussions about my hobby
| projects, but if enough beer is consumed, such discussions are
| inevitable.
|
| I have a clear impression that you can't get much reasonable
| feedback this way. Most people just don't know what you're
| talking about and will either support or dismiss your idea
| without knowing anything about the topic. They mostly react
| based on likeness to previous discussions or on a human
| likability level. Getting feedback this way has never worked
| for me.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > I never initiate discussions about my hobby projects, but
| if enough beer is consumed, such discussions are inevitable.
|
| Bringing up a business idea as a conversation topic after
| getting to know someone over beers is one thing.
|
| This blog post isn't about that, though. It's about ambushing
| people at a bar and demanding they review your startup idea.
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| > ...It's about ambushing people at a bar and demanding
| they review your startup idea.
|
| That sounds even worse to me. That needs a very friendly
| bar to afford to be that annoying. :)
| petalmind wrote:
| "The Mom Test" book seems to be about this exactly:
| https://www.momtestbook.com/
| tunesmith wrote:
| I went to a bar a few years ago and there was someone set up at a
| table in the corner with a weird-looking deck of cards and a sign
| that said, "help me test my game design!" That particular
| approach worked really well, but I think particularly because
| playing a game in a bar is fun.
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| In this case, it might work because you're not only asking for
| feedback; you're also (hopefully) contributing to people having
| fun.
| mhb wrote:
| $10 if you give me your opinion about my idea...
| neilv wrote:
| > _Their reaction was notably disturbed! I apologized, saying I
| had a pitch coming up, and would really like their opinions.
| Well, they were much more negative toward my idea than I thought
| they would be!_
|
| Because you interrupted their social outing with techbro baggery,
| including being kinda disingenuous about "a pitch coming up".
|
| > _Focus grouping. The only real difference is it is FREE._
|
| A non-consensual focus group, in a venue where people are going
| partly to get away from biz BS they have to tolerate during the
| workday.
|
| But if you're going to do it anyway, there is a convention in
| bars, of offering to buy a person a drink. Especially when it's
| an ambitious approach. No longer FREE.
| vasilzhigilei wrote:
| I think that the author needs to read "The Mom Test".
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