Customer Development/Idea Validation While Keeping The Day Job
So are there any strategies for doing customer development/idea validation while still having the day job (And the idea is close enough your boss may get mad if you're moonlighting)?
I've sent out some cold emails in the past but I always get a bit worried that I may reach out to the wrong person and they'll email my boss or someone on my team my find out about (I manage a small team).
I think there is a market for my idea as it is a problem I personally have in my job, but after reading some books like the mom test, I just want to get out there and talk to others/validate.
I've had a couple of ideas:
- Meetups & Conferences: As the idea is related to my current role, I could just be asking around about how others in my shoes solve similar problems.
- Networking through people I knew at former companies
Thoughts? Has anyone else successfully done this stage of customer development while still having a job?
To me it seems like a very minor risk. I've been doing bootstrapping on the side of full-time employment or freelancing since 2008 and, over a large number of different jobs and clients, I've never had a problem.