Latest / The Founder's Journey with Fexingo: First-Time Entrepreneurs, Failures, and Lessons Learned / How a Founder Used a 10-Minute Daily Survey to Land 100 Customers
Transcript
- Lucas: So picture this: you have zero budget for market research, no team, and a vague idea for a product aimed at substitute teachers. What do you do? Luna: Panic, probably. Then maybe start building something nobody wants. Lucas: Right, classic mistake. But a founder named Priya did something different. She spent ten minutes every morning, for 45 days, sending a simple survey to potential users on LinkedIn. And by the end, she had her first 100 paying customers. Luna: Ten minutes a day? That's less than I spend scrolling before my first coffee. Lucas: Exactly. And the numbers are pretty compelling. She sent out about 67 survey requests per week. That's roughly ten a day. Her response rate was around 40 percent, which is bonkers for cold outreach. And the survey itself? Just three questions. Luna: What were they? Lucas: First: 'What's the hardest part of your day as a substitute teacher?' Second: 'How do you currently find lesson plans?' And third: 'If a tool existed that solved this, would you pay for it?' Luna: Short, specific, and the last one is a buying signal disguised as a question. I like it. Lucas: And here's the thing—she didn't just collect data. She replied to every single response. If someone said they struggled with finding plans for special ed classes, she'd ask a follow-up. She built relationships before she had a product. Luna: So this wasn't just validation. It was also customer acquisition in disguise. Lucas: Exactly. By the time she launched her lesson-plan marketplace, she had a list of 120 people who had told her, directly, that they'd pay for it. The conversion rate was over 80 percent in the first week. Luna: And the cost? Zero dollars. Just ten minutes a day. Lucas: Which is why this story sticks with me. It's so easy to think you need a big budget or a fancy tool to understand your market. But Priya proved you just need genuine curiosity and consistency. Luna: Speaking of consistency, you know, it reminds me of why we keep this show ad-free. We've had listeners tell us that episodes like this one have saved them hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars. Lucas: Yeah. And we deliberately don't run ads because we want the content to be purely useful. If you've gotten value out of these conversations, and you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: No pressure, just a way to keep the lights on and the advice free. Lucas: Exactly. Now, back to Priya. One of the most interesting parts of her story is what she learned from the people who said 'no' in the survey. Luna: What did they say? Lucas: About 30 percent said they wouldn't pay. But when she dug into why, she found two groups: those who said they'd only use a free tool, and those who felt their school district should provide the plans. That feedback shaped her pricing. She offered a free tier with basic plans and a premium tier with state-aligned curriculum. Luna: Smart. She didn't just accept 'no'—she used it to segment her market. Lucas: And that's the J-curve of customer discovery. The early rejections are actually more valuable than the early yeses, because they force you to refine your value proposition. Luna: So the ten-minute survey became the backbone of her entire go to market strategy. Lucas: Exactly. She even used the survey responses to write her landing page copy. The phrase 'find plans in under 60 seconds' came straight from a teacher who said 'I don't have time to search for hours.' Luna: That's beautiful. Your customers write your marketing for you. Lucas: And it didn't stop there. After launch, she continued the daily habit. She'd ask new users one question: 'What's the one thing that would make this product indispensable to you?' Over time, those answers built her feature roadmap. Luna: So it's not just a validation tactic. It's a continuous feedback loop. Lucas: Exactly. And the cost never went up. Still ten minutes a day. Luna: I want to push back a little though. This seems like it only works if you're targeting a niche that hangs out on LinkedIn. What if your customers aren't on social media? Lucas: Fair point. But the method can adapt. Priya picked LinkedIn because substitute teachers are active in education groups there. If you're targeting, say, elderly retirees, maybe it's phone calls or community center bulletin boards. The principle is the same: find where your people are, ask them one question a day. Luna: So the ten-minute rule is really about intentionality, not the platform. Lucas: Exactly. And the consistency is what compounds. After 45 days, she had over 2,700 survey responses. That's a sample size most startups would pay a market research firm for. Luna: And she probably built relationships with a few hundred of those respondents, who then became her early evangelists. Lucas: Right. One of them actually started a Facebook group for substitute teachers using Priya's platform. That drove another 200 signups in month two. Luna: Wait—so the survey not only validated the idea and built the product, but also created a community? Lucas: Yes. Because Priya wasn't just collecting data. She was showing that she listened. People feel valued when you ask their opinion and then act on it. Luna: So the core lesson here isn't about surveys. It's about genuine curiosity as a competitive advantage. Lucas: I'd say that's exactly it. You don't need a million-dollar research budget. You need a willingness to ask, and the discipline to do it every day. Luna: And a way to act on what you hear. That's the part most founders skip. Lucas: Exactly. Priya's story is a great reminder that the cheapest, fastest market research is a conversation. And it's available to anyone with an internet connection and ten minutes. Luna: So what's next for her? Is she still doing the daily survey? Lucas: She told me she's scaled it back to twice a week. But she still reads every single response. She says it's the best part of her day. Luna: That's the kind of founder I'd want to learn from. Lucas: Yeah. And it's a good reminder for all of us: sometimes the best tool is just a question.