to begin obtaining UX work in Portland. I even hooked him up with a job interview. The entire user journey was pretty magical. Our trade was worth more than paper money because we both got so much out of the exchange of our traded skills without either of us having to file a W9. The current and potential investors liked what they saw, and more funding was raised so that we could continue experimenting and learning. As you can see from this case study, there are lots of different types of experiments that you might run and design to determine product/market fit — ones that don’t involve writing a single line of code. Here’s two popular methods: Online campaigns Jared was confident in his ability to draw people to our new landing page through marketing, which meant that he would need to advertise TradeYa. The primary purpose of any advertisement, concierge MVP, explainer video, or Kickstarter campaign, is to measure if potential customers take action. They need to respond with that tentative first click. A positive response such as a click can track specific actions with bite-sized measurements called metrics. Metrics can tell us the following: How many people landed on the YouTube video page? Of those, how many people watched the entire video? How much traffic was driven from the video page to the product site? How many people submitted their email address for more information? How many people made it down the entire sales funnel and signed up for a monthly subscription? A truly successful conversion will engage people with your product’s value proposition and eventually convert them into customers. Metrics have the potential to tell us everything from the click-through rate (CTR) of an online campaign to customer satisfaction levels. (I discuss this in greater detail in Chapter 9.) But online campaigns can also be used to pitch the MVP’s value proposition to users to see if they’ll “buy in” to the concept. This is usually a short-format “explainer” video or animation that explains the benefits of the product. You can find them on web pages, YouTube, or crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo; and they are meant to draw investors, raise funds, test product appeal, and acquire users. Successful buy-in is indicated by customer suspects who provide their email address or other personal information. This type of feedback data is considered “currency.”