1 session inside Boa
Chontel Duncan
Founder, NuForm
Chontel Duncan is the founder of HIIT Station and NuForm, a wellness tech platform, and a mum of five. She spent almost a decade coaching online for free through DMs, live chats and group content before moving that support into a paid digital product. She now runs the app business alongside a gym she has replaced herself in.
The session
What Chontel teaches
Validate with free ebooks, then charge for the next one
Chontel started NuForm's concept testing with free ebooks posted to her community and a comment-to-claim mechanic. Free downloads show genuine interest and grow the algorithm. Then she charged for ebooks, which showed what people actually placed value on. It costs nothing to run and it is still effective.
From Chontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →Use newsletter behaviour as a live demand signal
Track lifetime value on your email list, not just list size. Chontel watches how long subscribers stay, whether the response rate changes and whether people are still opening at all. When she pivots the content, subscriber and open behaviour tells her which one or two areas to feed and nourish.
From Chontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →Sell a physical product to learn what you are not
Chontel dabbled in apparel and a resistance band for at-home training around the start of COVID. It sold well, but it confirmed the business was best at training programs and nutrition. A side venture either pivots you in the right direction or signals what to stay focused on. Both answers are useful.
From Chontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →Slow down on app design or pay tens of thousands to fix it
Chontel's team designed NuForm in Figma, where each screen is a static screenshot rather than a video, so it is hard to interpret how the flow will feel. She and her husband made rushed decisions, then had to go back and move gadgets, change faces and reposition elements. That rework cost tens of thousands of dollars. Focus on nothing but the design while you are designing, and have the conversation at every single click.
From Chontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →
Watch the full sessioninside Boa.
Session notes are free. The recordings, the live advisories and the founders in the room are for members.