Ask IH: How to evaluate an idea?
Hey IH, my name is Yasin and I’m trying to find a way to evaluate an idea I have. I’ve done some research and haven’t found anything like that.
A little bit background: I’m an IT Consultant and windows administrator at my day job, searching for a developer position atm.
I’ve released an iOS app (Coiny http://bit.ly/Coiny_App) and haven’t done much marketing, so downloads are around 50 😢
As a husband and father with full time job, time is really limited. I’ve learned ASP.Net in evening school while still working full time and have also done a good diploma project with ASP.Net. So I would start with asp.net. core, Tailwind for UI and some JS.
My question is: should I openly talk about my idea and try to get some feedback, or do a landing page (coming soon page) where people can put in their mail address and get notified when the project launches?
There are a lot of things to check for me, like the APIs that I‘m gonna use and copyright things and so on.
How do you guys evaluate your ideas? As my time is limited to do coding, it will take couple of weeks at least to start and I don’t want the idea to be taken away.
I‘m curious about how you guys handle the evaluation and if you have any tips for me, I’m happy to hear about that. 👍
Not a straight way to do that, I'd say build an MVP and look into the Lean Startup Methodology - http://theleanstartup.com/principles
I can also recommend this book to anyone that needs to learn how to ask the right questions. It's the best thing out there in getting feedback on something when it's already out there - The mom test by Robert Fitzpatrick.
https://www.slideshare.net/xamde/summary-of-the-mom-test
That was my idea too. Do a landing page (kind of) and work on a MVP.
Will check both links. Thanks 👍
Imo landing pages and coming soon lists don't bring the same amount of validation that a Minimum viable product does.
If you have an MVP you're half-way there, get feedback, get validation and continue developing the product. You're not going to waste time going to market.
But I guess you have to be really convinced that your idea is good to being with.
Hey Lubomir, the thing is that I haven’t built the MVP yet. Maybe I should write down couple key points and open a new thread and ask for input here on IH ?
Formulating the requirements for an MVP is a tough job on its own. You should look into it in more detail.
I'll try my best 👍
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
:)
Before writing any code, I would survey people on whether or not they have the problem you are trying to solve. For my product, Stowbots (stowbots.com) I used the subreddit www.reddit.com/r/samplesize in order to ask people if they were manually organizing image downloads. I got a lot of "yes" responses, so that told me that there is at least some validity to the idea. There is a book called the Mom Test that gives good advice about how to phrase your questions such that you're getting to the truth of the situation rather than a subjective or polite response. If I were you I would ask Mom Test style questions to a few people who the product would be for, then make a landing page, then ask people who sign up for more info about their problem, then start work on the product itself. Best of luck.
This is a great response.
I would encourage talking about your idea, ideally before building the product. The more you engage with your potential users, the more you could uncover about the underserved needs in the market.
In addition to posting on targeted online forums, you can try out offline communities such as meetups and ask people questions in person.
I'll look into the Mom Test. Thanks 👍
It's kinda hard to ask questions without giving away your idea, right?
I don't think people really steal ideas, at least not until you're successful. The questions are supposed to primarily validate the problem, rather than what a specific solution would look like.
Couldn't agree with you more, but I'd go a step further. Once you've validated the problems the only way you will ever get people bought into your idea is by talking about it - worrying about someone else stealing your ideas will only slow you down.
It's also something that gets harder to do the longer you leave it, I've seen first hand what happens when you continually put off validating your solutions and its not pretty.
I evaluate using a few things like:
e.g., looking at Indie Hackers, you could get an interview format online with a blog and basic HTML skills, easy to start, no need to pay for much besides domain/hosting, you can get it rolling on Hacker News and so on, others can be encouraged to seed content (for SEO, etc), but maybe the pay-off is "only" lifestyle business level rather than FU money.
You can draw up a spreadsheet to evaluate and rank ideas but often you'll have a gutfeel that works based on the above things.
Alright, after getting convinced by you guys, I've posted my idea here: https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/idea-validation-community-to-share-custom-playlists-2ca5799222
I hope some of you can give me some feedback about this new community idea. Thanks 🙌
As others have said here, you need to find your target customers and talk to them (and/or research them). Perform tests that will prove that your target market demand what you want to build. If the don’t demand it: spend your time elsewhere.
Thank you for your suggestions.
Target audience could be anyone who uses a music streaming service. I think I’ll write down couple key points and ask here on IH and other communities about input.
Ok that’s good. Don’t be afraid to share your idea. “If it’s truly original you’ll ha e to force feed it to people.”
Thank you.
You guys have convinced me to write down my idea and ask for feedback. I'll open a new thread for that.