A step by step guide to validate ideas, start and grow your business.

Been thinking a lot about how to start a successful biz and increase the probability of success.

Here is how I would do it.

Step 1: open your eyes and look for problems around you in any niche, genre etc. the trick here is to question the status quo and find out what's wrong with the status quo. write those down.

Step 2: Once you find those problems, find out in which markets those problems exist. Find out markets that have significant number of players but not too much. It's even better if those players are incompetent and struggling.

Step 3: Reduce the outputs in Step 2 to the ones you found in Step 1. In other words, you want to find the intersection of Set A and Set B, where Set A = output in Step 1 and Set B=output in Step 2.

Step 4: Do this process for 6 weeks.

Step 5: Now time for deletion. First delete options you are (a) not enthusiastic about or (b) skilled to solve.

Step 6: See if the market level of sophistication.
Level 1: no competition
Level 2: just growing
Level 3: beginning to get crowded.
Level 4: Users bombarded with offers day and night
Level 5: Polarized and market is dominated by 2-3 players.

Delete all in L5.

Step 7: find out what the average consumer is paying to solve these problems within the market. Delete markets where the ARPU is low.

Step 8: Find out if the market is long-term (>7 years) and you can play long term games with long-term people. If not, delete it.

Step 9: Make a list of all the markets that remain and the corresponding solutions to problems within the market.

Step 10: Rank them on the basis of ease of doing it - how easy it is for you to do it.

Step 11: Start with the first rank.

Step 12: Make a target persona - the person who has the same problems you're solving for. Find out what their awareness levels are.

Quick primer on consumer level of awareness:

Level 1: clueless about his problem
Level 2: aware of problem
Level 3: aware of solutions

Step 13: Research everything about your target. His age, occupation, desires etc. everything.

Step 14: Make a list of 500 people to reach out to - ask them if they're interested in your solution.

Step 15: If they say, ask them to pre-order (craft an irresistible offer to make them say yes)

Step 16: If you get >20% of people willing to pay for it, you have found initial PMF. Build out your first MVP using no-code.

Step 17: If not, then, go back to Step 11 and repeat this process for rank 2.

Hope you find this thread valuable. I'm building Market Curve in public. Join me along for the ride and follow me on Twitter to learn more such interesting ideas.