The Groupvine team has been personally calling and interviewing higher education professionals, with the goal of understanding the market — particular problems faced — building school profiles — and building a product spec where we can solve the business problems of the market.

On the surface it sounds easy. Yeah, just talk to 50 people in certain types of roles. But it’s not.

I’m on track to speaking with 50 people by the end of January. How did I do it?

1. I compiled firsthand a list of 140 target contacts at a wide variety of schools. I made sure to include everyone who would potentially come into contact with Groupvine at a university — in other words — I asked myself who would have a touchpoint with the product. Then I sent an email to them.


2. I took this database — an Excel spreadsheet — and did a mail merge with Apple Mail. I used Email Merge X. You can get a copy here: www.kagi.com.


3. I merged this database with a form letter, with spaces for first name, position, school, and a field at the end for a “PS” if I had any personal connection with their organization. The form letter included who I was, why I was contacting them, and why I was doing what I was doing. Then I asked for a 15-20 minute phone call. And, as an incentive for them, I offered to share with them the results of my research.


4. I went through and made sure that the emails merged correctly, then sent all of them about 9 p.m. on a Thursday. That way, it ensured that my email would stand out, since it had an odd time stamp, and possibly one of the first things they saw when they came into the office the next day.
5. I sat back and waited — then the emails started flowing in.  Of about 140 sent emails, I about 31 confirmations.  This is roughly a 22 percent response rate.  Keep in mind that this is for free and I did not buy a list or use an email scraper.
6. I scheduled times back-to-back over a number of days and use a standard question form I devised.  This way, you can ensure some standardization when you have to go back and compile the data.
7. I’m staying flexible.  These people are all really busy and are doing me a favor for speaking with me.  I’m learning a lot and have to keep my word about giving back to them the results of my work.

That’s it.  If you have any questions, let me know.  It’s fun but exhausting, but it’s going to pay off in the end with any venture like this.