I was surprised once, but I think that's a natural reaction for geeks. It's hard to really get a feel for the general economy and what the average Joe wants.

Just because I don't buy anything from spam, would never buy food from a roadside stall, click on banner ads all day, or go do drugs or whatever.. doesn't mean the majority of the world isn't doing all that stuff each day :) Once realized, it's a pretty powerful thing.. yes, you can produce some really odd stuff and it will still sell!

The underachiever method is really just a market research technique that someone gave a name and made money from. As a market research technique, though, it works. It's just a variation of asking people what they like and then providing that.

It's better, though, because you've actually picked up people from Google who, in the main, were ready to buy! (Or at least read what you had to say about a product.) The opinions of these people are far more important than just general opinions from the market. These are folks with problems who are ready to put down cash to read stuff that will help them out.

The number of responses is small in a classical market research sense, but that's why it's usually done in a very small niche. 50-100 responses to, say, "Why do you want to learn French?" are going to provide enough of an indication of the general market groups.. expats living in France who want jobs, kids at home doing homework, rich guys wanting to pick up chicks in Monaco, etc. These answers can then significantly direct your product.

The alternative is to just build a product then hope the people clicking on your ad want to buy it. Doing even basic market research with something like the underachiever method will put you streets ahead of that point by at least giving you an indicator of what even a small group is definitely going to want to buy.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate your insight on this. I've found a copy of "The Underachiever Method" online and plan on checking it out.

Thanks!