How do you validate an idea?
Hi there folks!
I have been a long-time Indiehackers lurker. Finally, This year, I have decided to stop procrastinating, start building projects to turn them into a mini-SaaS & get some MRR.
However, even the smallest project is time-consuming (I worked full time as a software developer too). I want to figure out ways to validate an idea even before starting working on it.
I read some read & watch videos on how to validate an idea. I came across a suggestion that I find it's interesting to explore. The idea before starting building the product is that you can make a landing page, you create a fake payment system that doesn't really take payments or store the customer's payment information.
Instead, when the potential customer hits submit to make payment & use the software, we send them an email telling them that the product hasn't been built yet, that no payment has been registered & we'll send a notification to the email provided in the form when the product is ready.
I would like to know your honest feedback on this. Do you think this is a good or bad idea? Can you elaborate on the why? Have you tried it? What was the result?
What other ideas do you suggest instead?
Let me know your thoughts, I am genuinely interested.
I think that if it happened to me, I wouldn't come back to the product. I wouldn't trust the company the next time they asked me to buy something.
What about saying something like: Our product is in the early stage of development, and we expect to offer it for $xyz dollars. If you are interested, sign up for our newsletter and we will send you updates along the way.
I'm in a similar boat - early idea stage for my product - and I'm also trying to figure out how to test interest for something that hasn't been built yet. I'm hoping to get some sort of landing page up and running soon and I'm struggling with whether to put pricing on the page or not. Likely not initially.
Thanks for posting. Good luck!
If that happened to me, I'd probably also be concerned - but at the same time, it's a novel experience. One thing is for sure, I bet it'd get some viral traction online and it'd be GREAT pr.
I've been thinking more about it, and it is definitely novel. I also realize that I don't know your target customers. And I could actually think of a scenario or two where this could work - if done right. Perhaps you are trying to attract customers away from Zonko's Joke Shop. 😃 So, I guess the point is to follow your gut and have an idea what might attract your target customer.
Hi Manuel,
I don't think you really believe such a scheme would work or you wouldn't have bothered breaking silence to ask about it.
What I suggest instead is that we in IH try to work together as a community to give feedback where possible.
Best of luck,
David
I guess the best way to validate an idea is to post here and get feedback. Another is to see if there are competitors in the market, and how that market is doing. If it is a niche market, are you early? Or is the market just not one people want to be in. I think that's something to think about, but don't be afraid to test MVP ideas too.
I don't know how approachable it is with your product, but additionally to the landing page I would connect with an existing community (Facebook / Reddit) to offer them the product and have an honest opinion / signups count about the solution or service.
An extra would be to group up the avid future users who are really keen on using it, to be your first testers and users.
And as a side note, once you see the first spark, I would've personally switch to a half time job.
Good luck!
I'm a little late to the post, but I wanted to see what happened with you? Did you build your idea? If so, how did you validate it? I'm trying to do the same at the moment. I guess you get some validation from people's feedback in comments like here on IH. Other than that, did you try anything else?
The mom test was a really good book for us. Instead of building landing pages, we focused on finding users' problems. Once we did that, we had a bunch of people who knew us and basically co-developed the solution with us. We'd show them UI mocks and ask them about specific functionality.
Thanks for the feedback everybody! I truly appreciate it. I think I will go with your advice to make them sign for a newsletter & send them updates @kmanninen