4 Tips for validating your next idea
For clarity, these are tips for validating the problem, not your solution to the problem.
1. Use UpWork
There are a ton of companies on UpWork looking for freelancers to solve some problem. These companies are ready to open their wallets and pay for a solution. Use this data. If your idea is to build an AI to predict when someone's hungry and automatically order food for them, search UpWork and find out if anybody's actually looking for that.
2. Ask questions with factual answers
Instead of asking your friends and family "Would you use X?" ask them "When's the last time you did a Google search for X?" You might be surprised how many people would answer "Oh I'd totally use that" but they'd also answer "I've never actually searched for a solution to that problem."
3. Do competitors exist?
If competitors exist, you've validated the problem and you've more than likely validated that people are willing to pay for a solution. Keep in mind, there are 8 Billion people on Earth. If you don't have competitors, you're probably solving a problem that doesn't exist.
4. Look at your own credit card transactions
What have you actually paid for this past month? Why did you buy those things? You know the problem you're trying to solve... have you ever actually paid for something that attempts to solve it? Looking at your CC transactions will help you identify the level of pain it takes for a customer to actually buy something.
We also like to say, wherever there's a spreadsheet, there's a SaaS idea. Create a SaaS that specializes in simplifying what the spreadsheet is created to solve.
Agree with the second point. One of the best ways to create a successful product is to build what people search for instead of what they want. Thats why the keywords research is so important before building the product. By building what people search for can increase the chances of attracting organic traffic, generating leads and conversions.
The use of UpWork and asking factual questions to friends and family can help gather data and insights into the existence and severity of the problem.
Good ideas, I like the 'when did you last...' question and looking at what you pay for yourself although I think sometimes scratching your own itch can be a bit of a trap because you assume everyone has the same problems and everyone is the same as you and you can fall into the trap of not speaking to enough other customers.
What about using services like these to get peoples opinion:
https://www.usertesting.com/
https://www.userinterviews.com/plpq12021/user-research
The №3 is so right! I constantly explain that to all my friends who want to start a venture but yet, they are still looking for a
uniqueidea...Looking at your credit card transactions is a clever idea. Would also help you think through pricing - eg if I paid X to solve this problem previously would others be willing to pay a similar price for my solution.
Sorry I'm not sure I understood about Upwork.
If I find a company that is looking for the same idea validation then that means the problem exists?
Suppose your idea is to build a customer lifetime value calculator.. Then you go on UpWork and find that 10 people are hiring data scientists to calculate customer lifetime value for their business. That's pretty good validation.
Hey Ben, The upwork idea is brilliant! Definitely a creative way of validating your idea, will definitely implement this strategy moving forward.