How did you validate your idea outside of friends and family?
I recently heard the indie hacker podcast with the JT Marino (Tuft and Needle founder). He outlined how they validated their mattress idea. Apparently they did a one pager website and then created a google ad. Someone tried to buy a mattress from their site in the first 15 mins of them launching the ad, and their idea was validated.
Is that enough validation for a product? Enough to spend years working on something.
Has anyone validated their idea and set certain metrics, like only if I make x amount of sales, will I work on this?
Which brings me to the question, if you take someones money just to validate your idea, and have no product to give them, then how do you give their money back? Is there a fake money button that one can use just to validate?
Any insights on how others have validated their idea, set metrics and tested assumptions would be great.
This is a really intersting article on idea validation via landing pages: https://buffer.com/resources/idea-to-paying-customers-in-7-weeks-how-we-did-it/ (It was recommended to me by the great @jimzarkadas.)
To answer your question: Is a landing page enough validation to spend years working on an idea? – It's not. Don't spend years on anything without having customers.
Is it enough validation to spend a week or a month on an idea? – Probably. That amount of time won't hurt you.
Thanks a lot for sharing this post - a great and concise read!
This is great. Helps clarify a lot of things. Thanks so much.
You're welcome. I'm glad that I could help. :)
Validating an idea is really hard. And most of the times, you actually never get to fully "validate" your idea before you decide to take a leap and start working on it.
For me, validating an idea in my last 2 startups has always been about:
1 - Surveying as many of my future target market as possible before starting anything - pain ponts, validating potential solution, etc. This can be done F2F (almost in a 'door-knocking' style), but also via online surveys (for a few $$, you can place surveys in plenty of places - ProductHunt isn't too bad) or Social Media campaigns.
2 - Building a mock-up or proto as rapidly as possible to test the waters with a concrete example of what my idea could look like.
The challenge I see with 'fake money' is that it is ... 'fake'. People really truly only vote with their wallet. Their real one.
Good luck ;)
With my previous startup, we talked to a bunch of people face to face and these people were excited to use our product. When it came to launch, very few of those folks actually used the product, so I do agree that people vote with their wallets, and that one can never truly validate an idea. I also have come to realize that people might buy a product if it is presented or packaged in a different way. Like buying from dollar shave club vs shopping online for any other razor, but that is more for things that people already use like toothbrushes vs a SaaS product.
I cold emailed people and looked at response rate. Anything above 5% and I'm convinced it's a good idea
That sounds interesting, what made you come up with the 5% metric though? Is this something you have learned from your past experience?
What's your approach for getting those initial email addresses?
I decided to validate problems first as startup ideas are usually subjective and it's those who have the problem are going to buy our solution anyways.
So I'm building needgap a problem validation platform where problems are the first class citizens. Posts are created by the consumers(incl. entrepreneurs) who have a problem, want to find a solution for their problem, check if others share the same problem, how ever small the problem might be.
Builders can post their products in the comments if it solves that particular problem or else discuss with others to create a product to solve that problem(There are already products built/being built for problems from needgap).
I just took a look at needgap today and it looks great! Maybe a place where I can find my next business idea!
Thanks, you're welcomed to solve a problem and create a startup!
Nikwen’s Buffer example illustrated how to do it using a fake money button, but there is also the example of Kettle & Fire by Justin Mares that illustrates how he did it using a pre-sales tactic.
He created messaging that tricks people into thinking the product already exists by allowing people who were genuinely interested to pay him upfront, expecting the product, then emailing them to offer a refund or a discount while they wait for the product to be made. I personally believe he could have achieved similar results without the use of deception.
That is definitely interesting. Glad that they were able to make it work.
I like the buffer example better where they just stated that they didn't have the product and to leave an email. That said, it doesn't quite tell us whether people would have paid for the product even if they hit the pricing button.
I was thinking of just putting fake fields for credit card info and when the user hits submit, they get a message saying that the product is still in production. It would be annoying for the user but I would know if someone would pay for it.
Hey, that's a really nice article. Thanks for sharing! :)
That said, I'm also not a big fan of the deception.
This comment was deleted a year ago
I have been toying with Adwords but it is definitely one of the more expensive ad options out there. That said, it is a great tool if you are trying to validate if people are looking for certain keywords to come up with a business idea. I use something called keywords everywhere which tells me how how many people searched for a specific keyword which has been helpful.
Curious about this. How do you use Adwords for idea validation? Create ads and observe click-through rates?