How to validate a product concept?
I came up with what I think is a decent take on a pretty common business problem. I've made some mockups of what it will look like and I know exactly how to build it. But I've burned myself in the past spending weeks on ideas that people wouldn't spend money on, and this time I want to make sure I properly validate my idea before working too much on it.
Some ideas I have:
- contacting people I know from past companies who might be potential customers, and showing them the mockups and explaining how it would work
- contacting strangers on the internet with the above
- posting in public to get feedback(I'd rather not do this though because of competition but maybe that's a misplaced fear)
What are your guys thoughts?
Here is what validation is:
Here is what validation isn't:
Don't worry too much about the product/mockups at this stage. Just reach out to friends/friends of friends who you think have the problem you are solving. Talk to them about the problem and let them sell you on the solution.
The only way to know if people will pay money for your product is to ask them to pay money for your product.
The trick at the beginning is to ask them to pay money for a solution to their problem, and not to focus on the product itself at all!
Good luck :)
(and btw of course you should share your idea/mockups with the IH community - if the only way you can be successful with your product is to hide it from all other potential competitors, then sooner or later you're going to lose anyway!)
Thumbs up for this approach 👍
Selling on mockups is basically impossible because you're expecting people to have the ability to mentally transform a picture into a working tool in their mind, and they're just not able to do it. People's imaginations are shockingly limited (plus: being able to do that? not their job).
Posting them for public feedback: Same, with the added situation that if your peers are not your exact customers, 99% of feedback will be useless.
Realistically, you will need to develop the tool before you sell it, because pre-selling software is a great way to end up with immense amounts of guilt and months behind schedule.
I suggest you read a few articles on my site that help deal with this problem because the best way to avoid the "spending weeks on ideas that people wouldn't spend money on" is to flip the approach on its head and skip 'validation' altogether:
https://stackingthebricks.com/validation-is-backwards/
https://stackingthebricks.com/video-failure-vs-creating-a-product-people-want-to-buy/
https://stackingthebricks.com/why-you-should-do-a-tiny-product-first/
@yoshiki I am building a b2b SaaS with my brother and feel your pain. I am certain that the only validation that matters is money and most people don't get what you say, they need to see. So, here is what we are planning to do:
I remember when Dropbox "launched" with just a video (they didn't have the product either) and managed to register 70K emails of people interested in the first few days.
Yeah I think this could be a good way to gauge interest if you can get it in front of enough eyeballs.