My Hypothesis Pt. 2
Before these two weeks, I was pretty confident that wet bathroom floors made a lot of people annoyed and there needed to be a solution. However, from the ten interviews I've conducted, I can conclude that my market is significantly smaller than I estimated. Only a few people expressed a lot of frustration with their bathroom at all. The people I interviewed were all students at the University of Florida in various grades. One man said that he just goes in and goes out of the bathroom and doesn't pay attention to water and several other women said that it simply doesn't bother them because people should just dry off better while still in the shower.
A positive has been that I learned how to write better interview questions. The first week, my questions were all very direct and strictly business, which didn't get me a whole lot of results. This week I switched up my approach to get linger answers and it definitely worked for 4/5 interviewees. With each interview, I learned what questions were effective and which were not.
-The Need: A common complaint I got was hair in various places in the bathroom(shower floor, walls, sink, etc.) and the water spillage was an afterthought
-Why the Need Exists: As far as wet floors go, people are concerned about slipping and falling and the growth of mold and mildew.
A positive has been that I learned how to write better interview questions. The first week, my questions were all very direct and strictly business, which didn't get me a whole lot of results. This week I switched up my approach to get linger answers and it definitely worked for 4/5 interviewees. With each interview, I learned what questions were effective and which were not.
Inside the Boundary
-Who: Most likely freshman who will be entering college in a dorm with a community bathroom, but also anyone who desires their bathroom to look nice and be clean(this sounds like it should cover everyone, but believe me, it does not).-The Need: A common complaint I got was hair in various places in the bathroom(shower floor, walls, sink, etc.) and the water spillage was an afterthought
-Why the Need Exists: As far as wet floors go, people are concerned about slipping and falling and the growth of mold and mildew.
Outside the Boundary
-Who: Students who live in a house, have their bathroom cleaned by someone else, or whose bathroom cleanliness is not a priority.
-What the Need is Not: Something that focuses on water on the floor from person to person. If there is a need for this, it needs to be something more convenient because a bathmat would do most of the work that my product does.
-Alternative explanations: Again, this is not a prevalent bathroom issue. I still believe that this stems from people having difficulty identifying what bugs them in the moment in an interview, but the fact remains that this market is not large enough to sell a product or service to.
Although this might not be a viable opportunity to profit from, I learned a lot from the feedback given and I'm ready to find a new opportunity.
Hey Julia, thanks for sharing your idea. I similarly have this issue pretty frequently in my bathroom in Gainesville. Wet floors in the bathroom can be very annoying and even dangerous. Great job tying in your interviews with your blog post. Also, it's great that you are figuring out how to ask more beneficial questions to your interviewees.
ReplyDeleteJulia, thanks for sharing your post. That is so crazy that most people do not care about wet bathrooms! I guess it is just personal preference. I can say that I do not like walking into wet bathrooms because I do not want to slip, and the puddle would just accumulate bacteria. Your post was very informative and I like how you’re trying to change your interviewing style.
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