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Salty Commune is an alternative co-working space for the creative community, seeking to reunite the creatives with its rock-music-inspired aesthetics in Shoreditch, London. Back in 2017, the idea was born when the founders were looking for a work space that would represent their own rebellious and artsy perspective on life, but found that the offering of co-working spaces were exceptionally boring: all of them looked similar, stuck between being corporate and acceptably stylish.
Convinced that they can’t be alone in wanting a unique work space and that the market is ripe for differentiation and niche appeal, they set out to discover if this could be an idea worth developing.
Salty Commune’s founders are well aware that while they loved their idea, they needed to make sure that it is the right product for the right market. Afterall, building and investing in a product with no market need is the number 1 reason why startups fail. No further elaboration required!
To help Salty Commune validate their 4 ideas and assumptions, we used pretotyping, a set of techniques, tools and metrics to gauge interest in their idea before any sort of development. There are many ways to test if an idea works, but pretotyping is a particular method where hypotheses can be tested in less time to identify an innovation sweet spot with more certainty.
We used the 4 persona ideas as a starting point and created Facebook ads that appealed to this audience simply and effectively. These ads were simple and to the point.
In just 4 short weeks spending no more than £500, Rock Mission was able to confirm that Rock and Roll enthusiasts were indeed personas who would respond well to this offering, and gave Salty Commune confidence in allocating resources and time to develop this project further. In addition, Salty Commune was able to further segment this audience by contacting and surveying these individuals who signed up. This exercise revealed that companies and professionals who signed up were mainly from the creative and tech industries.
With this method, Salty Commune now has data to reasonably believe that creative and tech professionals who loves a rock and roll aesthetic and attitudes are seeking a coworking space just for them. Today, over 120 companies and freelancers have signed up to its website already and Salty Commune is seeking investment via Syndicate Room to launch their venture. Unlike other startups, they are more informed and well prepared instead of flying blind, hoping that their idea would work.
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