I am looking for some feedback on how to model this as a product and who will be the first set of customers for a product like this. I am thinking if independent consultants or freelancers may be of help to market this.
Any feedback on UI/UX, marketing, branding, funding will be highly appreciated.
At this stage, my recommendation would be to focus on 2 things: 1. getting to your first $1 as fast as possible, and 2. understanding the language of the users that are convinced enough to pay you at least $1.
Talk is cheap, and (speaking from experience) directly asking people whether they'd pay for something you made is one of the most misleading (and easiest) user research mistakes you can make.
Step 1: Create a pathway to facilitate receiving your first $1 - create a pricing package/tier for your product, and a way to make sure people are aware of it when visiting your website, or returning to use the product. Like literally, stick a price tag on your product, and see who bites - you can change it at any time, and remember that both positive and negative feedback around that price means that *people actually care*. This is a great result - engage deeply with the haters, they often have even more to tell you than the contented fans.
Step 2: Once the payment pathway is built, track how many people are making it through to the end, i.e. actually paying you. It's ok, if that number is 0 - keep tweaking your pathway until you get to 1+.
Step 3: Talk to the people who pay - like, *really* talk to them. Call them up, even make the effort to visit them in person. Understand their needs, how they solved for those needs before your product came along, the specific language they use to describe your product, and why they stopped using it (this will inevitably happen).
Step 4: Use this knowledge to establish and widen your customer acquisition channels - the language they use should be reflected in your marketing copy, the channels you use to acquire them should be reflective of where they go to find solutions for the problem(s) your product solves, and you should prioritize in the short term fixing/improving the things that caused those early paying customers to leave.
This formula doesn't work forever - it's a kickstarter iterative process for pre-revenue products, that helps you establish the main signal of fit between what the market demands, and what your product provides. Establish that first signal, then widen the bandwidth =)
I hope that's helpful! I'm happy to chat if you have additional questions. ~Jason
