How to structure a survey for validating a new product idea?

From the last few weeks, while talking to the Product Managers and Customer Experience Professionals, I observed that they both are facing challenges in one specific survey - The Product Ideation Survey.

The common problems that I found were

• Instead of focusing on the problem of the customer, their surveys were focused on their solution.
• Instead of asking the customers’ choices, their surveys were validating their own perceptions.

So, I spoke to some Product Managers who have already created this survey and used it successfully.

And with their successful surveys and insights, Moshe Mikanovsky and I created this sample structure that can help you create a Product Validation or Feature Validation Survey.

So let’s get started.

An efficient Product Ideation Survey has 3 sections.

1. Screening: This section contains the questions that confirm the demographics & psychographics of the customers. As it should absolutely match our target audience. Because if not, then what is the point of asking the rest of the questions?
2. Confirming the problem: This section contains the questions that confirm if they are facing the problem that you aim to solve. Make sure you revolve around the problem and not ask questions that point to your solution.

However, you can ask questions about the solutions that they might be already using. 

3. Setting the expectations: This section contains the questions that understand their expectations from software that can solve this problem and their willingness to pay.

Now let's take an example of a problem statement that we want to solve. Then, we’ll structure the survey for validating our idea.

Problem Statement

People in product management spend a lot of time creating surveys that provide proper insights into their product.

Their struggles are:

1. What questions should I ask?
2. What should be the ideal size of the survey?
3. Which scale to use in the survey?
4. Should I ask a quantitative or a qualitative question?
5. Am I leading the customers to what I want to find out?
6. Am I missing anything important?

Our Idea

Create a survey platform containing the templates for the entire product journey of a customer. Product Managers can pick the template of their choice and send it straight away to their customers without wasting time in finding the right questions.

Now let’s create the survey!

Creating the Survey

SECTION 1: Screening Questions

1. What is your position/job title in the company?
2. For how many years have you been in this role? 

• Fewer than 3 years
• 3 to 5 years
• 5 to 7 years
• More than 7 years

3. Are you responsible for gathering user feedback via surveys?

• Yes
• No

Only when a person falls into the category of ‘fewer than 3 years and ‘has created user surveys’, we show them the next questions.

SECTION 2: Confirming the problem

1. What kind of feedback are you responsible for?

• User Onboarding
• Satisfaction of a new feature launch
• Pricing
• Anything else

2. How many times have you run these surveys in the past?

3. How did you come up with the survey questions? What was your process?

4. How much time did you take to create these questions?

5. How many times you had to re-do the survey to get the right answers?

6. What was your biggest challenge in creating these surveys?

7. What kind of tools have you used in creating these surveys? Can you share the names?

SECTION 3: Setting the expectations 

1. How much would you be willing to pay for a tool which has built-in survey templates and you can survey up to 10000 customers a month?

• I will not pay for a tool like this
• Less than 50 dollars a month
• Between 50-100 dollars a month
• More than 100 dollars a month.

Note: Don’t ask ‘if they’d like a solution that solves their problem and would they pay for it?’ This doesn't have enough commitment from them to show a willingness to pay. Instead ask, ‘how much would they be willing to pay for a product that solves their problem’ 

2. Have you ever searched for a tool like this? If yes, did you find it and what was it?

3. Let's suppose there is a tool like that, you sign up to try it today, and you have 10 minutes to explore and see a list of survey templates. What information would you seek before choosing a survey template?

4. What would be your next step after finding the right template?

That’s all!

Is there anything you’d like to add? Would love to have your feedback!

PS: I am currently in the process of creating the templates for the entire product journey on our platform and they will be live in the next 2 weeks. If you want to try this out, leave a comment and I’ll inform you once they go live.