Opening the Fake Door

You run a lemonade stand in the center of a park and want to attract more visitors by adding… Bubble Tea is a popular drink with tapioca balls that is especially popular among young people. But before investing money in purchasing expensive equipment, ingredients and developing new recipes, I would like to somehow check whether this idea has potential.

The first thing that might come to mind is to ask your clients. This can certainly help get a signal of whether they're interested in a new product, but relying solely on surveys isn't always effective. Customer opinions are subjective and may not reflect actual interest in the product. Additionally, shoppers may not know exactly what they need or provide answers based on current trends rather than their actual preferences.

“Given that people themselves do not know what they want, this approach cannot be effective in principle. It’s up to you to decide what product should be released in the end.”

Rob Fitzpatrick: “Ask Mom:…”

We need a stronger signal that shows customers' intent to buy Bubble Tea!

Fake Door

We need to create a situation where customers can express their desire to try a new product. Instead of just asking, we can encourage them to take action!

This is where Fake Door comes into play – a kind of MVP that creates the appearance of features or the product itself to gather real audience response.

In the case of a lemonade stand, it might look like this: we create an eye-catching banner that says “Try our signature Bubble Tea in just XXX rubles!” and wait until customers try to “open the door” to our new product.

As you understand, no Bubble Tea does not exist at this stage. We are only checking how many people are really interested in our offer. This signal will be enough to estimate the sales of the new product and calculate the unit economics of the product.

Important point: the client should not feel deceived! It is necessary to carefully work out the mechanism for compensation due to “lack of drink available.”

More formally, the Fake Door method has the following structure:

1. Trigger. With minimal effort we create the appearance of a fully functioning product.

2. Action. We encourage customers to take a targeted action that may indicate demand.

3. Appreciation. We thank the customer for their interest and offer compensation for the inconvenience.

It looks quite simple and logical, but do not underestimate the power of this tool. Let's move from the toy example with a lemonade kiosk to real cases of using the Fake Door method in IT.

Case #1: Dropbox

The history of the birth of Dropbox is perhaps the most striking example of the use of Fake Door. Before creating a full-fledged product, they recorded an explanatory video demonstrating how their service would work. In one night alone, they received over 70,000 emails, which was a great indicator of interest in the product and allowed them to confirm its desirability before its official launch.

And here is that same video:

Case #2: Buffer

For those who may not be familiar with Buffer, it is a timed social media posting tool. Buffer CEO Joel Gascoigne decided he didn't want to create a product that no one would use. So they did something similar to what Dropbox did, but instead of a video, they created a landing page:

Those who reached the pricing screen and selected one of the available plans received a notification that the service was still under development. On the same page, users could leave their contact information to be notified when the product became available. Buffer later used the received emails to contact potential clients and conduct full-fledged Kastdevov.

Conclusion

The Fake Door concept can be called MVP before MVP. In the early stages, creating even a small MVP can require significant resources. Fake Door allows you to test market demand for a product or service without having to invest in development.

The Buffer example shows that this method allows you to establish contact with the target audience of the product and understand its expectations and needs already in the early stages.

“The sooner we put our idea or product into practice and receive feedback from potential customers, the less painful it will be for us, or, in business terms, the less losses (time, money, etc.) we will incur.”

Rob Fitzpatrick: “Ask Mom:…”

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