How I asked people to help shape Tinkeru

Today I will go into how I set up a survey that was put out to get an understanding of the current pain points for those looking to tinker on their cars.

The feedback was great, mistakes were made that I would change next time, but for the most part it gave us the insights we were hoping for and allowed us to move forward.

Thanks for reading!

Survey Approach and Results

I know what my experience had been trying to diagnose issues with my car, find the fix online, order parts, stuff up the install etc…but I needed to know if others have similar experiences. I had garnered some key assumptions from an assumption exercise I had completed earlier.

The assumptions I came to were that car enthusiast/DIY mechanics:

• are actively seeking better diagnostic tools

• are seeking access to repair guides

• are willing to pay for this access

One way of validating these assumptions is to build out a survey and ask people. Starting with a brain dump of questions and information I wanted to learn more about, I used ChatGPT to help me sense check them (bad idea), order them and assist in a general tidy up of the questions and answer options. When it was looking good, I’d somehow created a 20 minute survey with like 45 questions!

I asked Manisa for some feedback on what me and my buddy ChatGPT had put together and she instantly started reducing down the content, question by question, until we had a core set of questions that broadly covered the assumptions we were trying to validate. It wasn’t going to give us deep insights, but we are in startup ideation phase, so lets just get some insights, ASAP!

With the survey trimmed down, it was time to find participants. I’ve done it before (and I’ll do it again!) so I headed to Reddit to collate a list of subreddits related to cars, maintenance, DIY etc. I would NOT recommend you do it this way (there are more passive ways to do it)…..I started posting asking for input on Tinkeru….like BLATENTLY requesting for survey inputs. I’m the worst.

Some facts:

Of the 10 or subreddits I posted in:

• I was permabanned from two

• I had the post removed by another two subreddits.

• Utterly, and deservedly, ridiculed by 1 (apologies again r/ecutuning)

• The rest were generally supportive and curious about what Tinkeru was attempting to do.

I also posted on LinkedIn and on my personal Facebook account, both of which got a few participants. Launched on a Friday, I got 54 responses by the Sunday evening when I closed the survey and prepped to synthesise the data.

Synthesising data is hard for me (my brain doesn’t work that way). I threw the data into ChatGPT (WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS?!) and gave it a prompt to synth the data, provide insights, potential further research etc. And it went and did it’s thing…..terribly. From the get go it gave me incorrect numbers, false responses. If I corrected the inaccuracies, ChatGPT would adjust the data to be correct, but it had already proved itself untrustworthy. After a bit of back and forth, I knew what I had to do…

Matt slowly opens Miro

Ok, Miro it is, let’s get manual with it, and let’s go! I dump all the data into Miro and start plowing through the responses, noticing patterns/trends, potential for further research, key takeaways etc, and end up with a tonne of post-it notes.

I collated the key findings, put together and email and sent it off to the team!

Some high level tidbits, pain points and insights from the survey for you:

1. Lack of tools + space to work = biggest pain points.

2. Access to reliable information, lack of knowledge and complexity of repairs bubbled up a few times.

3. Most responses were neutral when asked about AI/AR tools.

4. Decent interest in a hybrid model offering both online and offline offerings. (nb. offline = car clubs, events etc.)

5. Whilst DIY is preferred, people engage with qualified mechanics when repairs are beyond skill level, they lack time or tools.

6. A large majority of people find qualified mechanics through recommendations from friends and family.

7. When it comes to using unqualified mechanics, responses were mixed, mostly due to concerns about quality.

Next is to formulate some tests we can prototype and test. We won’t have time to do them all, so we will select one or two to start with and go from there. And then, build, test, iterate. Build, test, iterate. Build, test, you get the picture.

Mistakes were made (I haven’t flexed these muscles for a number months), but we got the feedback we needed to progress forward, so a good outcome.

What actual work has happened?

1. Built out newsletter on Beehiiv ✔️

2. Shared newsletter publicly ✔️ 

3. Assumption mapping exercise ✔️ 

4. Key assumptions identified ✔️

5. Research plan ✔️ 

6. Research piece #1 = survey ✔️ 

7. Logo sorted ✔️

8. Signup form on www.tinkeru.com ✔️

9. Start posting on socials ✔️

10. Survey has been sent out ✔️ 

11. Survey has been synthesised ✔️

12. Survey key findings have been shared with team ✔️

13. Next steps = MVP tests ✔️

14. Settled on a single persona to build for ✔️

15. Build a dirty MVP AI Diagnostic Tool ✔️

16. Told people what Tinkeru is ✔️

17. Business plan has been started ✔️ 

18. Next steps = MVP tests/prototypes ✔️ 

19. Prepare for MVP definition workshops ✔️

20. Fix leaking sunroof 👈️ 🤪 🚗 ✔️ 

Still to be done:

1. Financial plan has been started

2. Survey for Mechanics

Thank youse*

• Thanks to all the people that completed the survey and provided such great insights. To those that left their email addresses, I’ll reach out in the coming weeks to test out our prototype (whatever it may be).

• Thanks to The Startup Network for running a cool session on defining ones MVP (perfect timing!) with Pablo from Bigger

• Thanks to our mentor Stef from Ligantic for making time to field my basic AI questions, and for being so insightful in your feedback. It was a real motivating chat! :)

*Youse is an Australianism in place of saying ‘you guys’.

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Keep on tinkering! 🚗 🔧