The assumption I am testing is that outdoorsy people are interested in a rugged phone with enhanced capabilities including good camera, GPS and connectivity, and AI voice assistance. To test this assumption, I conducted primary customer interviews with outdoorsy students and family friends and asked in a Reddit Post in r/hiking and r/outdoors if people are generally interested in our product.
Results shows that in total, just about 32% of people are interested in our product. However, people with a higher income to spend (not necessarily income for students) are a lot more likely to be interested in this device even when they might not be extremely outdoorsy but only interested in outdoorsy activities on a regular basis. However, people who are extremely outdoorsy (especially people who are in the reddit groups) have a significantly lower percentage of interest. They indicate the main reason to saying “no” was because they are extremely outdoorsy mostly to get away from all the technology and smartphones. We definitely anticipated the interest from somewhat outdoorsy people with a higher income to spend but did not anticipate the number of extremely outdoorsy people who said no. Going forward, we will definitely target our product more to our niche market of affluent outdoorsy people.
