41
22 Comments

Having built 2 startups ($1mn+ revenue), here are 9 techniques I use to validate startup ideas

  1. 2

    The depth of this thread is incredible. Thanks for sharing, always love seeing how many actionable insights you share!

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot for the kind words, Lachlan :)

  2. 1

    This thread is everything i needed ive been trying to figure out how to test if there is a chance for a couple of ideas i have, especially because they are concepts no one else had implemented in Uganda. Super Useful. Thanks

  3. 1

    Why do you choose to write this in a twitter thread when a blog post would be a much more suitable format ?

    1. 1

      Twitter threads are more easily distributable.

  4. 1

    Karthik, I normally hate reading long Twitter threads like that, but yours provided some very helpful, practical, and actionable information.

    Figured I'd share a few details about something I'm doing that utilized many of the same techniques you outlined in your tweet-thread.

    My latest (physical) product came-to-be as a result of a similar process. I wrote a little about here on IH not too long ago.

    I discovered there was a problem only by accident, after publishing a specific article. The article got and gets a lot of traffic, so that told me people had a problem, and they were looking for a solution. After learning there was a problem, and not many good products existed to solve it, I thought it made sense trying to solve it. The article now serves as a great lead-gen to the product website I created. Plus, and as an added bonus, I get to see all of the search terms people use to reach this article.

    My waitlist sign-up form includes a field that says the following:

    While we wait, tell me a little about your situation. Any/all information will be helpful :)

    That question alone has garnered some incredible insight, and it's also helped me better understand who is facing the problem and what specifically they have a problem with.

    Since it's a physical product, it's a little trickier to find a way to get near production-quality parts without overspending. But, I did find a way to keep the initial product development costs low.

    A few weeks ago I also did a few other things, to prepare for when I have the next batch of inventory available, including:

    • Started a simple Google Ads search campaign to help collect more leads (using the search terms collected from traffic to the lead-gen article)
    • Dropped Google Ads retargeting code on the site so I can later retarget people who have visited the site
    • Dropped a FB pixel on the lead-gen article so I can retarget people on FB who have read the article. Also dropped a FB pixel on my product website too.

    We'll see what happens. Either people will hate it or love -- only time will tell.

    1. 1

      This is super interesting - thanks for sharing Mike! I hope people read your story & experience and explore the more preferable way of proceeding with one's idea where distribution & access guides the product growth rather than the other way round.

      Your idea to invest more into ads given that you already have the terms sounds promising to me. I've had a poor experience with both Google and Facebook ads to be honest, but I would be very interested to hear your experience with it.

      1. 1

        @karthik_2206 - Appreciate the support and kind words.

        As you well know, advertising on Google and FB each have their own nuances. You can't really use the same ad strategy on both platforms. While I'm not yet doing any advertising on FB, my plan would be to only start with running retargeting ads (not prospecting ads) on FB.

        Here are some high level stats on the on existing Google search campaign I'm running:
        Start Date: May 1, 2021
        Impressions: 4,349
        Clicks: 261
        Click-thru rate: 6%
        Avg CPC: $0.39
        Cost: $101
        --------------
        Conversions: 41
        Conversion Rate: 16.33%
        Cost per Conversion: $2.27

        The above campaign is driving people to the homepage of my product site where they can learn more about it. This also sets FB & Google cookies for retargeting later.

        Conversions: Right now I'm tracking a conversion as someone who visits the Buy page. Even though they can't buy atm, I feel like that's a reasonable indicator of a conversion or potential conversion.

        If you'd be interested in learning any other specifics, feel free to email me using the link in my IH profile. I'd be happy to share all the data with you.

  5. 1

    Thanks Karthik! I read a tweet where you say you mostly used no-code tools to build Flexiple.com. I'm an experienced engineer but looking to get my feet wet building custom automations between no-code tools (where existing no-code integrations fall short) as I'm convinced no code is better when paired with code and want to help people gain access low cost coding resources.

    As a freelancer on Flexiple, can you be this specific in what projects you'd take on?

    1. 1

      Hey, I am 100% there with you. In a lot of my NoCode projects, I do add a good amount of code to tweak them to my preferences.

      However, from a freelance projects perspective, on Flexiple, most of our projects are still hard tech-focused ones and lesser to do with NoCode integrations. As NoCode scales and so do we, I hope we will be able to offer such projects too.

  6. 1

    Found this to be of value and I appreciate you sharing it! Thank you.

  7. 1

    Thanks for this, awesome stuff! Having built two apps, I can second this.

  8. 1

    So much value in this! Thanks man. Your story about $100k with Google Sheets is awesome.

    1. 1

      Thanks a lot Artur :)

  9. 1

    Ayy nice to see you here as well, after seeing you on Twitter Karthik!

  10. 0

    it is good idea to share, i will try to use these idea on my store luck.com.pk

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 29 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 16 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments