On launching a pilot to test out an idea
The idea, why I'm interested in it, why a pilot, next steps.
This past week I launched a small “pilot” to try out an idea I’m currently interested in. In this post, I share what the idea is, why I’m interested in it, what I’m hoping to get out of the pilot, and how the first week has gone.
The idea
Name: Gather.
Tagline: Find your people in a new place
One liner: A members-only activities-based social app to help young professionals who have moved to a new city build community. Think vetted Meetup for young professionals.
Space: consumer, social
Macro problem: adult loneliness / social disconnection
Target audience: young professionals 25-35 who’ve moved to a new city in the last few years
Specific problems: as a lonely young professional in a new city, it’s hard to find people I click with + if I find them, it’s hard to create deep friendships with them.
So what: insufficient meaningful IRL friendships can significantly hurt mental and physical health + worsen quality of life.
Beliefs: The best way to make new authentic friendships is to spend time in small groups of people with shared values doing activities you enjoy on a recurring basis. Given the right tools, a meaningful number of people will propose and attend activity-based hangouts. The best experience contains many kinds of activities not just one. This will help people build greater social connection. People will be willing to pay for that greater social connection.
Competitors: Primary: Meetup, FB groups. Secondary: Bumble BFF, Locals, goFrendly, Invite Only, private social clubs etc. Other: Dating apps, Whatsapp group chat, offline friend making (house parties, friends of friends, talking to strangers).
Primary user experience issues with Meetup/FB groups: as a young professional, you usually don’t find people like you that you “click with” there + activities are not diverse/creative enough + you don’t necessarily see the same people over and over + you feel lame going to it.
Current goal: test core user value hypothesis as cheaply as possible.
Non goals: fundraising, coding, designing, branding, marketing.
Risks: User experience -> maintaining the right vibe in people and events at scale, women getting harassed by men. Biz -> willingness to pay (WTP), customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV) due to questionable retention. Other -> low barrier to entry + “sexy” problem means lots of competitors, no obvious why now, probably not profitable for a while so likely will be dependent on investors for a while. Approach -> not investing in building waitlist now could make a bigger launch harder.
How I’ve come up with above: 20+ interviews with expats + trying all competing services + reading/watching a lot of content online + convos with friends/mentors + reflection.
Why this idea
Massive global problem: loneliness is a huge issue across the world. In the US. In the UK. Persistent loneliness is as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
Meaningful to me: I’ve experienced how lonely it can be to move to a new city having moved to three new cities in my adult life (SF, NYC, Stockholm). I have lots of friends who have experienced this as well.
Good founder market fit: In addition to experiencing this three times, I’ve worked in product in consumer social at LinkedIn for 4 years and then new product innovation at Spotify for 1.5 years. Brag: I launched the “Newsletters on LinkedIn” content format and there are now now 450 million newsletter subscriptions(!) I love bringing people together in small groups and have naturally done this my whole life (poker nights, book clubs, bowling, movies, study groups etc).
Big market: millions of young professionals move to new cities every year and spend thousands even tens of thousands of dollars settling in to a new place. Why wouldn’t they (or their company) spend a few thousand per person for something that significantly improved their quality of life?
The pilot
Goal: better understand the problem by testing a hypothesis with target users as “cheaply” as possible in order to inform how to proceed.
How: recruit 20 interested friends into a Whatsapp group chat and simulate what the experience might be like using posts, reactions, and polls. Charge $10 per person to lightly screen for people who actually kinda care and kinda test for wtp (neither guaranteed since I recruited my friends). Participate as organizer and attendee throughout + get feedback from participants.
Principles in designing pilot: SCRAPPY: write no code and create no designs. SIMPLE: default to dead simple and only add complexity when absolutely must be added. FUN: have fun with it, drop pretense, stay curious and open.
The first week
Previously: invited 30 friends to fill out a survey describing the idea at a high level, asking them for some demographic data, if they were interested in participating, and if they’d pay me. Collected payment from ~20. First dollar! 🤑
Last Wednesday: created group chat, added the 20 people in.
Wednesday-Friday: shared some info with folks + proposed two “gatherings” for this weekend.
Saturday: gathering #1. Thrift shopping.
Sunday (today): gathering #2. Rock climbing. Picture below.
My next steps
Facilitate more gatherings this week + understand what’s working and what’s not via informal feedback from folks in pilot group.
Reach out!
I love when people reach out in response to my writing, even if just to say hi. I’d be especially keen to chat with you if:
you’re a 25-35 year old professional who’s recently moved to a new city and experiencing loneliness or had this experience in the last 5 years
you have direct experience building consumer social, ideally tackling loneliness for above audience
Such an important idea, the tragic epidemic of loneliness negatively impacts millions... bravo!
Incredible idea Lachlan! Loneliness is a big problem in our society these days. I’m really excited about this one.