Faster ways of testing/validating ideas?
Anyone knows easy and fast ways to validate ideas? The current choices I see take quite some effort:
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Building a landing page with a fake CTA, even with a builder, takes quite some time; tbh, a good landing page is often more work than the actual product; then you need to get reach on it; using FB is great, its ad tool gives you many insights and features such as A/B testing pics but I need to setup a Facebook Page, need to create some minimum content there etc; then I need to run and iterate the campaigns at least for 1 or 2 weeks to find the right angle in order to get a final validation or not. Then, I'm already building a full-fledged venture and am not 'testing' anymore.
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PH Ship: From what I've read, it's expensive and I still would need to send reach to it like in 1 because the PH traffic which comes in the paid versions is ridiculously small. Then, I somehow dislike the entire PH universe. While PH is a solid product/company, the whole thing feels unreal, especially upvotes.
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Asking friends: worst way to test idea. Too small sample size. If they like you they lie and usually they don't face that exact problem you try to solve
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There're some apps out where you can get immediate feedback/start polls from some people but then it's not clear who these people are, some mechanical turks, low paid people from poor countries or just pumped up stats from 10 asked people.
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Finding a co-founder: this test has actually some strong signalling power. If you find somebody who is committing time to your idea then your idea might be better than the average ideas. But finding a co-founder, getting the terms right and so on is too much hassle just to test an idea and some just don't want co-founders.
So, what's your take on this?
Talk to potential customers?
this is a good idea but also quite tricky if you want to do it by scale. but it's a start, thanks!
Why do you need to talk to customers at scale? Find out if a problem exists and are they actively looking for a solution or using a bad solution.
because it could be misleading? if you just ask few people the probability for statistical bias/erros/etc. is 99,99% and even if you'd asked enough people, there's still the debate if people actually know what they want and if they are even able to articulate what they want. You often need to get the product in front of their face to get some valuable response... people don't know what they want, they tell you that they never click on ads but ordered already three penis pumps...
Not at all, if you find 10 people who are using a terrible solution and have actively searched for a better way you should be fine.
You don't ask what they want, you see what actions they took in the past.
For the pump, you can see clear intent by doing google trends etc. Finding customers to interview might be a little harder.
dont get this
yes but they are all weak signals and nothing idk already
... which is the entire point of this thread, how to test/validate FAST...
I'd suggest reading the Mom Test if you haven't yet Cass1
I personally feel that validating your idea is not the starting point...validating the problem is. You can definitely do this through a handful of conversations with the right people.
Most ideas are solutions to problems had by specific people or people in specific contexts. To start, chat with folks that you believe might have the problem you want to solve, and verify that the problem is real. Ask how they are solving for it today. Figure out where the shortcomings are from their perspective. Understand their workflow.
Yes! The problem-validation approach is incredibly helpful in making sure that whatever solution you want to build, it solves a real/non-fictional/painful problem.
I wrote about the process here: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/finding-the-critical-problem/
ok this is actually a very good new angle on this topic i wasnt aware of. thanks!
still idk how to get access to those people quickly, easily and without paying anything...
Ah, quick and cheap access to domain experts... if that was easy, we'd have a world full of products that actually solve real problems :)
I can only recommend finding the watercoolers of the industry. Where do these people hang out when they're not working? Do they have communities you could become a part of? Are there Facebook groups? Maybe old fashioned mailing lists or web forums? Are there meetups?
I know you want to validate at scale, which I assume is the quantitative approach. But for idea validation, I would definitely (also) validate qualitatively, by having an extensive conversation with a few people who care about their job, care about helping other people, and are open to trying new things. Finding the early adopters in any industry is hard, but at least they are all hanging out at the same place / read the same blogs / listen to the same podcasts.
yeah you're 100% right but if i go this path and i usually have to, at some point i am so deep in a rabbit hole, invested so much time that it's much harder to quit and you just keep on doing that project because you invested already so much time... but that's wrong, i want to be able to have an idea in the morning and know by the evening if it has potential without spending weeks on it
Most people are more than willing to talk about the parts of their job/work/life that need to be improved. People like complaining and dreaming of a better world. If the interview or conversation is presented as being for "them" and not for "you," you're likely to get folks willing to chat. Highly recommend reading "The Mom Test."
Some things you just can't rush, the validation is arguably the most important. Mistakes early on will have a significant impact down the line.
sounds like you are considering very trivial products (not meaning to be rude, but seriously, Touchgram so far is a couple of thousand dev hours)
The fastest way is to work on a problem that has proven demand, then develop a better solution and show it to your competitors' customers. You have many many ways to find them and contact them.
I know that it sounds cooler to do something new, but it is a lot harder, requires more time, usually more money, and the success rate is very very low.
yes and no. you minimize adoption risk but you don't know the struggle some business have. from the outside you see huge traffic + many players but from the inside everything is rotten. so not sure about this
If for "from the inside everything is rotten" you mean that the business could be losing money, I see your point but I disagree for a few reasons.
First of all, the first problem startups have is that they are not solving a problem. And you will avoid it this way.
Second, a business loses money when the costs are higher than the revenue.
It can happen mainly for two reasons: the business has intrinsic and unavoidable fixed costs (like airlines and cable tv channels, very few businesses are in this category and probably none on IH) or the business has an inefficient cost structure.
It is pretty easy to have a more efficient cost structure than an existing business when you are starting from scratch. First of all, downsizing is really hard to do. Second, you have or at least you shouldn't have made up your mind on many things. That comes with years in the trenches.
Third, most real businesses are not being kept artificially alive by investors willing to accept billion of dollars in losses, like the dropbox, slack, and uber of this world. Most businesses, if they lose money for 2-3 years, are done.
Now let's make a concrete example. Let's say that you want to build an email marketing Saas. You look at the competition. Mailchimp is approaching $1 bil. Twilio paid Sendgrid $2 bil, so you know that there is money to be made here.
Now, maybe those two companies are losing money, as you said (they aren't, but for this example we will ignore this fact). You shouldn't care. Why? They have hundred of employees and a complex solution. You can build a super simple version of the product with a team of two. In fact, there are some examples from IH who did it. The radically different cost structure can allow your business to be profitable even if older and bigger competitors aren't.
Want another example?
Small-medium and online only media compared to the giant and crumbling competitords. Or youtube channels vs cable tv. The problem is the same, the cost structure is completely different.
good post and i agree. just sometimes businesses keep on a broken business model because yeah as you wrote investors somehow keep it alive. however the general notion you give makes sense
The only way is to get feedback from your target audience. It is a question of chicken and egg, which should come first? Idea or exploring the needs))
Thanks for the info, really helpful for me. I just want to ask, is it a good idea to validate my ideas by launching an mvp product, instead of landing page. Then showcase it my target niche through social media?
Best way is to speak to potential customers.
See if they actually have the problem and are they trying to solve it.
If you can't find anyone to speak to, it most likely isn't a big enough problem.
Got it. I have some potential customer that i can speak to.
i think it doesn't matter what you do, most important that whatever you do try to get as fast as possible a response. like now, you wrote a question and got 5min later a response. just find out with which action you get faster feedback.
landing page vs mvp is good q and should be debated more often. good landing pages take often way more time than building the core product + there're millions of ways how to communicate a product + millions of ways to get lost in design and copy. However doing a landing is a good shit-test, you'll see if you are able to communicate the value or worse you see if your product doesn't have any perceived value.
again, opt for the way where you get the fastest response. maybe it's just sketching the idea here or in social media with a plain post...
Got it. That really totally make sense. I think landing page is a much better option too, because it will really help me to communicate my product through my target niche, and i think that's a real challenge tho.