Hi! We are a B2B robotics startup focuses on facility management/Janitorial companies. How we are currently understanding our current customers are: • Higher level in the hierarchy (they are welling to try something new and expand, and more committed to customers) • Of older generation because of the market segment (they do not have much info online like linkedIn or even emails sometimes, just a front desk number) I wonder if you guys have any suggestions for us? Any input would be appreciated.

Hi! What suggestions are you looking for specifically? Is your description of target market fit seem right? How do you find customers in that market fit? How to do market validation? Sounds interesting and would love to learn more, just not sure on what suggestions you’re hoping for.

I think originally I was thinking about mainly how to find customers in this field. From the customers we have talked to (due to one reason or another we are no longer in business with them), these products seems to spread by the word of mouth. But now you have mentioned it, I think how to do market validation would also help.

Can I ask - do you have a product that already does this work? Any website or one pager I could learn about your product? To answer your question though, in my opinion, the one and only way to do market validation is through a process called the Mom Test. Happy to talk through it with you or if you don’t feel like talking to me just read the book 🤓- it's super short and I can essentially guarantee you won't regret reading it.

Ya for sure. You can checkout our website here: friendlyrobots.co, the book I’m assuming is called the mom test? I’m happy to talk to you about this

Thanks for sharing! So let’s plan on talking soon, but before we do I have to ask - What’s the difference between you and a roomba or a Neato? Curios to know in what scenario I should chose you over them. The book - yes The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick.

We are focusing on semi tight spaces like offices/schools. So we focus on efficiency and vacuuming quality. We are currently in trials with a co-working space around 28k sqft, it takes us around 1.5 hr to vacuum the entire space. Imagine a roomba cleaning the same space. Then our robot lasts 4-6 hrs. Then there’s the operation portion of the business, where in consumer market it is ok to rescue the robot every now and then, but in a business setting, it is much more important to reduce that as much as possible. So we are developing the operational tools to allow us to help the robot as much as possible instead of the customer.

Interesting. Love it. So simply put, you could think of it as an industrial-grade roomba. Happy to talk about how I would reccommend finding customers and doing market validation. Feel free to direct message me with times you’re free next week to do so. Below are my quick thoughts: Finding Customers: Two ways to do this. Inbound leads or outbound leads. Inbound leads are when people come to you. You want to build out this capability through tactics like • SEO • Paid searches (google or bing) • Getting on websites that list/rank products/services • Email campaigns Outbound leads are when you find people. You’ll want to consider: • email campaigns • Advertisements • Join groups (any cleaning facebook groups? Are there landlord groups?) • Face to face discussions with your believed target market (ask to get meetings set up, show up at their door, message people on LinkedIn etc….) Market Validation: • Again, cannot stress enough the mom test book • Why not get someone or some people to sign up as a beta tester? You’ll let them test it out for 1 month for free and in return, they promise to fill out X amount of feedback forms. Then the ultimate test, see if at the end of the free trial, if they’re willing to buy it. If not, why not? ◦ I'm sure you can find plenty of people locally who will try your product for free. • The most important point - There are no truths inside your office walls. It's out there in the world, so get your product in the hands of people ASAP and start learning now from that. Even if (actually especially if) your product isn’t fully complete. You can spend years talking about how to create your product, but you’ll know more if you just spent a single day of observing it in the real world.