VaaS - Validation as a Service
Throwing this idea out there for comments:
I'm an ex-founder of a SaaS startup that never made it to product market fit. Looking back, I realize I didn't approach the task correctly and built a very expensive MVP that didn't satisfy customer needs. By then, I was too cash strapped to pivot. That was 2013. Since then, I've learned to code and continue to work on little side projects here and there, but mostly for my own entertainment - mostly because I haven't found an idea that I think is a good fit for me and has enough commercial viability. Oh and on top of all that, I'm getting my MBA.
If you're not scared off just yet, here's my idea:
We've all heard the advice from everyone who's anyone in startupland - "find a group of people, find what they struggle with, build the simplest possible solution and iterate to millions in ARR". Do we follow that advice? Rarely.
My solution: Validation as a Service. Bring an idea, I'll seek out people in your target market, validate the market need, collect email addresses and give it all to you.
I like the thought because I do enjoy this phase of a startup and I would be distant enough from the project to evaluate it fairly and since I'm not building the solution, I wouldn't run down to the basement and start coding when I got the chance.
Why am I considering this? Because I enjoy that phase of a startup. I have nearly a decade of professional Sales & Marketing experience, as well as the aforementioned MBA.
What do I get out of this? Experience and hopefully tuition funds. Then when you're successful, maybe you'll hit up your old pal?
What are your thoughts, community? An idea worthy of throwing up a landing page and testing out further?
The problem is that as the founder of a startup, you should be the one talking to users and validating your idea. By outsourcing this step you will not get to know your target market as well as you should and you might miss out on some opportunities.
I'm not saying you might not get people using it, but I don't know how much value or how much of a service you'd actually be providing to your customers.
You'd have to be REALLY good at understanding a lot of different markets and reporting back to founders. This also makes the business hard to scale as you will need to find a lot of people who are exceptionally good at this for this work at all.
Valid points. You're right, it would likely be hard to scale to a very large level.
So on the upside, validation is something that entrepreneurs generally do really badly at and they're interested in getting better.
On the downside, that $1000 price tag is gonna be hard to justify - it's easy if their idea turns out to be valid, but it's a tough pill to swallow if it doesn't. Also what happens if they pay the $1000, you determine the idea to be valid then they find that the business still doesn't work? Would it be fair to blame you?
I think it's a really intriguing idea, but I can't imagine paying $1k for it even if it does kind of make sense.
My advice would be to be a bit more specific with it - what I would pay 1k for is for you to go find me a bunch of pre-orders in a specific niche. Maybe you could even position it so you have a base retainer then a commission for each pre-order. It's a lot more concrete than just "validation", and if you get on to a good thing you could potentially make a bunch more off it.
Full disclosure: I'm trying to do something in this space too but at a waaay different end of the market.
Enthusiast: great idea, I'll just throw any ideas I have your way and only pursue the ones with value ... Would use it. I'd quickly pre-validate 10 ideas and then follow up on 1-2 in depth myself.
Scepticist: Well in the early phase I dont have any budget for it. So how far can we go with $50 per idea?
Pessimist: probably you are going to "steal" any good ideas anyway. (Bullshit of course, but I guess there would be many ppl thinking like this) And in the beginning I need any information about the customers I can get so I need to do it myself...
Ideas:
maybe offer staged plans like $50 for first validation plan and concept including ToDo checklist with 10 Potential customer leads ... Then $200 for validation calls or first outreach, or only even scheduling the calls with a list of validation questions... Etc. So that in each stage I could either proceed myself or hire you for the next step
i've seen something similar where they would use "AI" to do market research ... Probably a smoke-and-mirror test ... But cant remember the Name
a landingpage to pay a few bucks for a Skype call with you might be a good start. Guess there are a few people who dont know where to start validation
Thanks for the feedback and ideas Patrick!
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
Thanks Thomas -
Oh I wasn't intending this to be a free or "cheap" offering - just extremely valuable. If I had to price this service tomorrow, I would charge $1000 - considering 40 hours at $25 an hour. Ideally, I'd creep this price up over time and seek ways to simplify, automate, and become more efficient and increasing my effective hourly rate.
For value prop - if we consider a decent dev can pull down $50/hr in my area, we're comparing the service to 20 hours of work. I gotta tell you, if I could have someone fully hash out an idea with input from a handful of potential customers and deliver their contact info you couldn't stop me from giving you $1000 if I trusted you would do a good job.
Just saw your comments about pricing after sending my comment. I guess that might be the key move to figure out WHO exactly would pay upwards of $1000 for a validation service of a new idea.
Probably not first time side-project people who aim for <$10k MRR
or maybe... if I already know and trust your skills and results. But not for a "random idea of mine" from a "random dude ;-)
This comment was deleted 7 years ago