A community/platform for idea validation?
As makers and startup founders, we all face this problem of validating our ideas. As of now, it is neither straight forward nor quick to do it.
So I was wondering, what if there is a community of early adopters who are open to learning about new products/services and can provide feedback on whether they'd buy such an offering.
The only option that I see as of now is ProductHunt's Upcoming section and to a certain extent BetaList and similar sites (which assume that the product is being built).
Any thoughts about about why such a place doesn't exist? (or does it and I don't know about it?... 😄)
Well, that's all the point of some groups in IH, producthunt,betalist,....or even target group in facebook/reddit/....
I mean there are so many ideas and targets, so using the actual plateform will be more efficient because the community is still here.
Create a community is really a hard thing.
Otherwise, there are paid plateform. You can even use the tool of google to make a survey and you paid per each answer : https://surveys.google.com/
I agree that IH, PH, betalist are very valuable. IH is especially valuable for idea brainstorming and a bit of validation just like the discussion happening in this post. But this is not where I might find a possible customer if I'm not building a product for indie hackers.
Yeah, creating community is really hard.
Have you checked out usertesting.com ?
This looks like post product building validation. I'm asking about pre product building. Just at idea stage.
It looks like a neat idea, but also full of bias. If you want to validate an idea, and you do that with 'professional validators', I would argue your results have no real meaning. You have to distinguish between beta testers and validation. Beta testers are great to polish a product, but they don't need to be early adopters... They don't even need to be interested in what you sell. Validation, however has a completely different meaning, since it is the statistical tool that gives you some confidence regarding your product, business plan, idea, etc.
On the other hand, as a user of the platform you propose, If you are in a specific niche, probably you know already where to find the people you are targeting, if you want to build a community of potential early adopters for every niche out there, you will end up watering down your strength.
These are my concerns regarding what you are proposing. Perhaps they help you on how to market your idea in order to validate it ;-)
Thank you @aqui_c. I did not mean to ask for a community of professional validators. I'm looking for a platform where I can directly reach out to people who might have the pain point that I'm solving.
Eg., I'm working on a productivity platform for freelancers. I was a freelancer a while ago and I'm part of a few communities where they hang out. I don't participate in those groups now since I'm no longer a freelancer. It is generally frowned upon to post about my product there since I'm not contributing or participating in the community regularly (in which case, it might feel like selling). And freelancing being such a diverse field, the folks whom I know are a very small subset of potential customers anyway.
So I was hoping to know about a platform where this expectation of selling is explicit. I, as a freelancer will sign up to this platform and describe my "world". If an entrepreneur is working on products/solutions that fit into my "world", I'll get alerted and can potentially engage with the founder.
I do agree that it is practically impossible to build an audience for every niche into a single community. May be start with SAAS (which itself is very wide)?
I think you can relatively get a good indication if you are honest with yourself. Try using this idea evaluation tool (based on YC's partner lecture): https://www.polidoesntcare.com/blog/the-startup-idea-evaluation-meter
This looks very interesting. Thanks for sharing @erikbrodch.
Sure, happy to help!
QuickMVP exists.
This looks great for working with early adopters after you find them. I'm exploring one step before that - finding these fine folks... 😇
Landing Page Feedback and Ideas and Validation groups here on IH?
Yes, those groups are definitely helpful Rosie, but I'm talking more formalized with value exchange where I get to meet my exact target audience based on their interests.
Eg., if I post the landing page here for a very niche product, I might not get a good validation of the idea even though it has potential because there might not be many folks on IH who know about that particular industry (I've seen such examples here).
It is still going to be a very good feedback here, but it is not real validation if IH folks are not potential customer segment.
Welcome to product market fit. This is the holy grail for any company these days. Sadly it’s become more and more expensive.
What you’re looking for is the ability to order off a menu of people that fit the niche you’re looking for to provide you feedback to validate product market fit.
Research groups exist like usertesting etc to solve for some of this.
Validation depends on the goal. For most people it means “people willing to pay” but then the question. Comes “why are they paying” and “why are they signing up” we have a secondary black hole as to the “why”.
The cost is steep though. A lot of this comes down to building a community before you build the product.
Creating a product that streams music maybe you star with a community that tracks artists on Spotify with less than 20k listens. And highlight the best ones. Music tastemakers. Also people looking to license those songs would love you keeps the costs down. Willing to bet would be a fun way to pair early stage companies with early bands.
Ok I digress. What you’re describing sadly there is no shortcut for. You need to look where people are going to find answers to what you solve for and contribute to the community.
I agree that validation is not as simple as how I put it, and I also agree that community building should come before product to help with faster validation and iteration in the future.
But this takes time. So what if there is a platform that banks on the curiosity of early adopters to help founders crash this timeline into a few days rather than a few weeks or months?
I guess the more important question is, given that this is a critical problem for all startups, why doesn't such platform exist?
What your after doesn't exist for people without a following/community.
It comes down to the "what's in it for me" problem.
Everyone's time is valuable and worth something, when someone doesn't know about you and isn't part of your community they expect a reward for providing their time.
What are you looking to validate? I think this is the key part to start this conversation, who is your target market?
Granted, I will fully agree with you that the process is broken and that the amount of money needed is 100x what it was in 2010 to have success, but that is largely a transition as to how businesses are created, ask the Jenners.
So let's think differently, I'm guessing here but I'm sure it's common across multiple founders.
So there is a framework to approaching this:
The closest "product" I've seen is by Balloonary.io launched just a few months ago. It's a landing page builder with built in ads and analytics.
The downside is, getting someone to sign up for an email doesn't mean they are going to buy something.
The most successful companies are built from someone that has been in an industry experienced a gap first hand has enough contacts in the industry to confirm (validate) it's something that they face and has people from within that industry interested in throwing money at them.
A founder that is solving a problem for others that they don't currently face will undoubtedly have a very uphill battle. A genuine story of "why" goes a really long way when it comes to marketing.
I'm loving this conversation. Thanks for engaging... 🙂
"What's in it for me" is answered by some kind of value exchange, just like kickstarter. Assuming that we start this platform for SAAS products, it'll involve LTDs, early access, etc.
Here's an example idea statement from a founder (me) - "The current way of tracking time in spreadsheets is cumbersome and doesn't offer insights into planning and the health of your projects. I'm building a tool that simplifies time tracking and provides actionable insights about your time. Would you buy it?"
Since you are freelance marketing and CS consultant (assuming that you track time for your projects), the platform might send you an email that I'm solving this problem. You can simply answer with one of "Yes", "Need more info", "No" and elaborate on the reasons if you choose to.
A possible monetization strategy could be that I, as a founder will get to engage with you on the platform if I pay. So without spending any money, I got a potential lead that has this problem and might be interested in buying the solution.
What's in it for you?
The obvious challenge is building out this community which is no small feat.
You definitely nailed the context as you described the founder's situation and also the current standard procedure of validating ideas.
Balloonary looks awesome and seems like it'll help a lot in terms of organizing my validation process. Thanks for sharing.
I think your head is in the right space. I think there is a problem with the model though.
Sidenote on #3: I was director at a company that was the first kickstarter darling - there is a massive misalignment between what early backers think they deserve as a backer and what they actually deserve. Kickstarter is a paid marketing campaign for validation to raise VC or outside funding. The outside funding is usually an 8-10x multiple of the kickstarter raise.
By the way Kickstarter even for a VC backed brand is nearly 40% add spend to money collected depending on the category - it's not a good ROI. It's used instead to raise more funding.
Ok continuing on:
Everyone assumes a problem is worth fixing. This is a fallacy.
Some problems aren't optimized but the cost of searching for a solution that ticks all the boxes is too much work.
Example: I subscribe to product hunt to see what's going on with new products. Sometimes I see good things.
I search product hunt to find products - anything older than a few years has more than a 50/50 shot of not existing anymore.
When someone has a problem, they have a few key considerations that are rarely addressed.
If I invest my time, is the product ready in the early stages to solve for something I need? At what trade offs?
Will the product be around long term?
What does switching over entail?
These are the three questions that LITERALLY no one addresses on a landing page and if you attempt to answer them early on, you'll be lying.
From where I'm sitting, the vast majority of companies, just don't get it. Most of the people selling products have never purchased a product or actually evaluated a product. Most of the marketing people don't/can't think in a manner that allows them to constructively break down the elements that build trust with a brand.
Another example that really grinds my gears. Companies that hide what the product looks like and how it works.
It's nearly 2020, if I want to watch a video I stream it, if I want to listen to a song I stream it, BUT if I want to see your product and how it works, I have to sign up and figure it out on my own or set up a call to schedule a demo blah blah blah... I think you see the problem.
Let's look at what you're actually trying to solve for a different way. The Indie Hacker way -
What is the goal in revenue?
How many people are needed to run the business?
What is the allocation of risk? (Inventory, time, etc)
From there you then look to things like Total Addressable Market - is it large enough? Do they have money? Are they willing to pay?
Even your flush companies will authorize team outings or retreats for thousands of dollars instead of paying for software.
Mentally, it's just how people think about things.
I'll buy an $8 beer or $12 glass of wine before I spend $1 on an app. I'll drop $100 plus on a lunch but I cancelled my LinkedIn Sales Navigator $80 a month subscription because I wasn't using it enough - I can write off the LinkedIn every month, I can't write off the lunch every lunch and I'll have more than a few of them a month.
Look, I think what you're going after is in the right vain but it's too much of a jump.
I do think though that there are ways to close that gap.
The people you want feedback from likely will do a cost benefit analysis and determine it's not worth their time to provide feedback unless they are getting paid by a company to look for a solution that they have already allocated budget for.
I know that's a lot to unpack right. This goes back to the age old sales methodology of BANT. Budget Authority Need Timing.
So here's the rub, we know that everyone researches products and has to compare at least 2 - 3 to make sure it looks like they are doing things correctly and they are more than 80% down the track towards a decision when they land on your page. Yet we still make people jump through hoops - it makes no sense.
So how do you get past the - do I have time for this?
Appealing to altruism? Looking for a connection to make it feel like something worth doing to make someone feel good? Pay them?
Can you afford the opinions you're looking for?
The amount of time I've spent commenting on this was an opportunity cost of more than $250 of doing billable work.
I'm a sucker for the conversation though - I like helping people work through their ideas to figure out how to get to the "WHY" of things and search for a solution.
I would suggest - you look at this from another point of view - WHY do people sign up for and use services?
Conversion rates are notoriously low across all sectors, getting a signup doesn't mean you'll convert, but for those that did at any companies, ask.
There's a ton of strings in forums recommending software products that people use daily in their job, ask them how they were introduced and why they bought in.
Hi Jon. Yeah, I completely agree with you about the weak incentive structure.
Definitely feels like what I'm going after is too much of a jump . Hence I wanted to start the discussion here and got some amazing insights.
The premise here is that there are already communities like PH where new products are launched every day and they build a really good following, inspite of the same 3 points that you put up not answered (trade offs, long term availability, switching cost). I guess it works at PH because people get to see the product, the team and make a more informed decision.
My obvious hypothesis here is that early adopters really do entertain their passion for trying out new stuff rather than trying to make that purchase decision. A little more about it here - https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/understanding-early-adopters-and-customer-adoption-patterns.
PH's "Upcoming" product is also doing well in terms of building a following for founders. In a way, what I'm exploring is how the Upcoming feature of PH will look like at scale - a lot more open, organic and collaborative.
The incentive structure plays a key role in this. The interaction-design.org article above does contradict my ideas in some ways about the nature of early adopters, but that's the learning part for me.
Loved your ideas about the direction I can take to explore this further. Thank you.
I'll have to visualize more about how such a platform will look like. I think this has opportunity for exploration in terms of how societies/communities work in general rather than looking at it as a typical product validation problem for founders. Lot to study... 🙂
So I've been thinking a lot about this recently.
We're seeing a shift and it's MASSIVE and a lot of people are missing it.
The customer journey is now in a completely different place than it was 6 years ago, I know because I've been tracking it since before that and designing programs around it.
The basic elements still exist:
They've grown from what the list used to be as people have more and more options.
What I'm trying to tell you is that with the customer journey changing the way we're discovering products is also changing. As well as our attention span for things.
If you're looking to grow a personal following, what you're doing has to become part of your brand.
My brand is providing advice to people to achieve success through better process, resource allocation, and accountability.
I have built products to help people learn about business trends, themselves, and to share those opinions with the world. In a nutshell, this is what my brand is all about, helping businesses discover how to grow, thrive, and share their story with the world.
A lot of this starts with their professional networks.
Personal Branding is the only thing that matters for founders today. (and every other employee)
If you're an engineer be active in those forums.
If you're in sales be active on LinkedIn - that's where all your buyers are hanging out.
If you're a founder - tell your story on LinkedIn, Reddit, etc.
It's not all about who the people that are going to buy are but rather who will see your content and talk about something they read. This is what people miss badly about sales.
Today the hard sell is gone. Everyone has access to a ton of information before they engage with a product. Or they will sign on take a look and be done within 15 mins (I've watched this happen a lot).
There are a lot of problems with the way that companies are trying to launch today.
They launch without a clear value proposition or it's something that looks pretty and polished but the market need might not totally be there.
The best marketers are story tellers. They capture your imagination really quickly on the possibilities of what's to come.
There is a lot of talk about building a movement as being the best way to launch a company (we work is a good example), all the best founders start with belief statements:
Example my belief statements for my recent project morningprompt.com
I believe more people should be posting about their professional experience on LinkedIn.
I believe there is too much valuable knowledge that isn't being shared.
I believe that sharing knowledge should be as easy as answering a question.
I believe it should be easy to get a new question emailed to you daily.
----------------
Why I like this project - I'm reducing the friction of having to think about what to talk about and adding transparency to those looking to learn from others.
Even in a connected world like this you got 3 real answers to this question and every one of my answers were 3x as long. And this post will only live here in isolation to be forgotten - THIS IS A PROBLEM.
Makes sense. Morning prompt looks great. Subscribed. I keep wondering how so many people are so amazing at being deliberate about sharing what they know and experience. I see this especially on Twitter.
Follow up to sharing the knowledge is being able to organize it. It is too disparate at the moment and hence, a lot of redundant and logically opposing content is produced (which might also be valid in the right context).
More I think about it, revenue sharing and founder paying to engage with the interested party might not be a good idea. Has a lot of potential to game the system.
Sounds like this is a problem you're passionate about. Why don't you give it a shot? Create a scrappy MVP and test the waters.
Well, I'm trying to solve this problem of validation for my own project, hence the question. Been in this situation more than once and I know it takes a lot of effort to validate.
Although it might be a really long journey to build such a diverse community given the inherent nature of the problem, it definitely feels like a problem worth solving since so many founders are in this place.
Let's see. I'll keep brainstorming further and might try to build something if I find a scrappy way of validating this (so meta... 😄).
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
Saw this a while back and submitted my project also to it. Good luck. This is definitely a problem worth solving for indie hackers.