Voice of the Customer Program - Accelerating Product Market Fit

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

We help startups achieve product-market fit faster & scale through early customer interviews that inform critical product and GTM decisions.

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

The information gained during these studies will provide critical insights into the founder and the direction they will take in their company. It will be up to the founder to decide if they will release the findings of these studies. 

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

The insights derived from these studies will provide the project with critical product,marketing and GTM information. Sharing that info will be up to the project.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

We developed a product called 'Voice of the Customer,' where we reach out to a startup's potential customer and interview the buyer persona, with the founder participating in the interview to gain critical insights to help inform critical product and GTM decision making. 

When working on a new project, we first speak with the founder to understand what insights are the most pressing for them to understand. Here are a few insight examples:

1. Do buyers value my current product idea/POC/MVP? 
2. What do buyers/users want to see in my product roadmap?
3. Am I solving a large enough problem? 
4. What do potential buyers/users value is similar solutions?
5. What channels are most effective in reaching my target audience?
6. What are buyers/users willing to pay for this solution?
7. What parts of my marketing are working, and what are failing? 

Once we have the insights the founder is looking to gain, we will craft the questions that will be asked of every interview participant. We will then start the outreach to the founder's buyer persona and schedule up to 10 interviews. We then conduct the interview with the founder and record the full interview for the founder's benefit. Once all interviews have been completed, we will then compile a report that answers the insights the founder requested (as well as other critical insights that surface during interviews) with the findings from the interviews as well as a post analysis of all the findings in a report that is similar to this.

The founder is now able to make critical early stage decisions backed by market feedback that will enable the project to understand the steps it needs to take to find product market fit faster. This approach also reduces the iteration and pivot cycles that eat up grant and treasury resources.

At the end of every engagement, Infrastructure will ask for an NPS for every project. The results of the NPS will be publicly shared with the Cardano ecosystem to provide proof of value.

Because Cardano is a fully decentralized ecosystem, Infrastructure will create a form for interested projects to apply for a Voice of the Customer study.

After 12 applicant signups have been collected, Infrastructure will apply the acceptance criteria across the applicants, interview the founders, and finally pick the projects to receive the service.

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

The Cardano ecosystem will be larger and healthier by increasing the number of new teams getting to product market fit and scale. The Voice of the Customer product helps increase the likelihood that a team will achieve these goals. The actionable recommendations from the interviews can help in each step of a startups journey:

1) Example: Product ideation

Voice of the Customer can help company at the product iteration stage. Teams will be able to identify the needs of the customer and will be able to see if their product will be able to meet these needs. Second, leveraging potential customer feedback allows the team to make critical product decisions faster at this stage, significantly reducing costly development expenses and time. Finally, the team can validate the customer's willingness to pay for the product or solution.

2) Example: Building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) 

Voice of the Customer can provide insights on how well the user experience works, usability, functionality, and the product's general value to the customer are all critical. Also, quickly iterating based on customer feedback at this stage will help the team rapidly find product market fit signals.

3) Example: Marketing Strategy 

Once the product has been deemed ready for market, the project will benefit from leveraging the voice of the customer to gain critical go to market insights. Some of these insights might be what channel to prioritize, the type of marketing activities that will drive awareness for the target persona, and what customers think of your product compared to alternatives.

 4) Example: Go To Market Strategy 

When the project is ready to go to market, including the Voice of the Customer in the GTM strategy ensures you're not making assumptions about your target market. It allows you to develop a data-driven and customer-centric approach, increasing your chances of success in the marketplace. Some of the insights that would be helpful in understanding at this stage are if the project is targeting the correct ideal customer persona, understanding what objections potential buyers have, and what is the most efficient method of reaching potential users and buyers with the project's current capabilities. 

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

We currently provide this service for the NEAR, ICP, and Kadena ecosystems and have been doing so for over 2 years. The Voice of the Customer is a core service of Infrastructure Co as well as the venture arm of our business. We know how to do this work efficiently and how to deliver the results on budget within the allotted time.

Here are some testimonials from previous Voice of the Customer founders:

"Infrastructure was great to work with. They helped us gain critical insights from our customers, which helped us increase our understanding of our market's needs and decrease our time finding product market fit." 

• Andy Hankika, Founder, Loka

"Working with your team has been a truly positive and impactful experience. Your support and dedication to our project, Orally, have not only been instrumental in our progress but also a source of inspiration for us. As a fellow new business, we understand the importance of positive endorsements and are more than willing to vouch for the excellent service and support we received. Looking forward to our continued collaboration and mutual growth!"

• Ihor Verkhohliad, Founder, Orally

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1 will be completed when the first 2 engagements have successfuly been accomplished and the founders have their report and an NPS has been taken.

Milestone 2 will be completed when the third and fourth engagements have successfully been accomplished, the founders have their report, and an NPS has been taken.

Milestone 3 will be completed when the fifth and sixth engagements have successfully been accomplished, the founders have their report, and an NPS has been taken.

The final milestone will be accomplished when Infrastructure provides the results of the NPS scores and a final report to the Cardano ecosystem that details the impact of the services.

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Aaron Anderson - Founder - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-d-anderson/

Ian Foley - Co Founder - https://www.linkedin.com/in/foleyian/

Marina Antony - Director of Operations - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-antony-243746200/

Elena Mihajlovska - Account Manager - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-nicole-mihajlovska/

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Voice of the Customer per engagement is $ $5,833. The team members who will be working on these engagements will be:

Aaron Anderson

Marina Antony

Elena Mihajlovska

Each report will have up to 10 interviews accomplished with the founder's ideal buyer persona. A large part of the work that is done for each report is the business development work involved in getting 10 potential users/buyers to do an interview.

The rest of the work that is done is compiling the findings and performing post analysis of the findings to answer the questions/insights that the founder wanted to know. This report normally takes 1 week to accomplish.

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

A Voice of the Customer engagement costs $7,300. We have discounted this service for the Cardano Foundation by 25% as we are interested in making this service cost-effective for new projects.