Leadin is a project that was conceived and continues to be nurtured at the Hubspot headquarters. While there is a plugin to integrate WordPress with the Hubspot system plugin, Leadin was expressly created to use as a standalone WordPress marketing automation plugin for small businesses.

The creators, Nelson Joyce and Andy Cook, were given little guidance about exactly what functions Leadin should address and how it should work. The Leadin duo invested time listening to prospective users. They engaged in discovery conversations to uncover if the prototypes they had created solved problems that were meaningful to the audience.

Nelson and Andy had a variety of ideas to start but only one of their ideas generated the type of feedback and signals to move ahead and become more refined. The creators share how they gathered and compiled unfiltered user feedback by focusing on an interviewee’s actual usage scenarios not hypothetical ones.

Interview takeaway lessons for launching a product:

* Get excited about the problem you are working on not the solution you have created.

* Get paid early in the product development life cycle to validate your idea.

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What was discussed during the conversation between Matt, Nelson Joyce and Andy Cook

times correspond to video

2:00 What is Leadin and what do you do everyday to work on it?

2:40 How did you decide on the product to pursue?

5:00 How did you get Darmesh Shah as your investor in your first start up?

10:30 Nelson, why did you partner with Andy?

11:25 How did you use sketch to start planning out the product?

13:30 What was your process like to get feedback from potential users?

16:00 What are the first steps to use when you are creating a solution to a problem with a new product?

17:35 How should you go about finding a problem to solve in the market?

19:25 how did you track and organize the feedback you were receiving?

21:30 Did you present several mockup products to your test audience?

24:10 What was the conversation like to select the product to move forward with in production?

25:40 Is there anything you would change about the early development process?

27:20 Do you think the customer would be more committed to the product if they had to pay for it early on?

28:45 What is the pricing model now for Leadin?

31:00 Are WordPress products priced too low relative to the value created?

32:00 What is next for Leadin?

34:25 Do you think the WP plugin repository has been critical to growth of Leadin user base?

Resources mentioned

Email: [email protected] and [email protected]

Twitter: @leadinapp

Website: LeadIn.com

Hubspot

Darmesh Shah

Sketch

Lean Canvas

Basecamp

Get notified when Matt Report WordPress Startup Challenge #3 is actively being planned.