Overview
A Pre-Sales Smoke Test helps you figure out if users will actually pay for your product by charging them for it before you can deliver the product directly.
In GLIDR, you would run this test as an Experiment and set a specific metric for how many payments constitute a successful test. Then, as you ran the experiment, your test itself would be one piece of Evidence - Other where you could record who purchased, through which channel, and attach the raw data. Finally, in the Analyze phase, you would assess if the test was successful or if you still needed to refine it.
In Brief
"Pre-sales involves accepting payment in exchange for a promise to deliver the value proposition at a later date." This represents a highly committed form of smoke testing that carries implicit or legal obligations to deliver. Pre-sales are also known as pre-orders, vaporware, or vaporgoods.
An important consideration: Does the prospect know your product does not yet exist? This awareness significantly affects campaign dynamics and results.
Most crowdfunding campaigns function as pre-sales campaigns. Platforms like Celery can support these efforts.
The MVP for pre-sales campaigns may include descriptions, product renderings, mock-ups, simulations, promotional videos, and customer testimonials.
Helps Answer
Is the customer actually willing to pay money for the value proposition?
Tags
- Quantitative Validation
- Benchmarking
- Positioning
- Value Proposition
- Audience Selection Strategy
- Investor Attraction
Time Commitment
1 week to 90 days. "Most successful crowdfunding pre-sales campaigns involve 30 days of pre-promotion and a 40-day campaign duration (70 days total)."
How To
- Create your MVP (renderings or simulations, promotional media, pricing, testimonials, etc).
- Establish your pre-sales ecommerce platform.
- Promote and launch your campaign.
- Measure results (conversions and total orders).
Potential Biases
- Confirmation Bias
- Invalid Target Audience
- False Negative
Adapted from The Real Startup Book, edited by Tristan Kromer and published by Kromatic, under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.