My takeaways from one week of trying to validate my idea
Hi everyone! I spent the last week trying to validate Visual Backend (https://visual-backend.com), which is a desktop app that aims to improve backend development by eliminating the need to write boilerplate code. This article is about what I did to try and validate it, and the things I've learnt about the validation process.
So first, what did I do?
Given that it was my first time trying to validate this idea, I had no knowledge of where my target segment hung out, or who they even were. As such, I had no specific strategy and employed more of a throw at a wall and see what sticks approach. But anyways, here are the things I did this past week and some of the results I got:
1. Post on three reddit communities: r/Startups, r/Backend & r/express
There were two effects from these posts. Firstly, I managed to have some conversations with people on the actual thread. Secondly, I got maybe 5 or so people to join the waiting list for my product, of which I talked to 2 and asked about why they decided to join.
2. Cold outreach to software developers on LinkedIn and asking them questions about their experience with the problem
For this method, I wrote to 5 - 10 software developers for 4 days, and surprisingly (unlike previous times I did this), I got a pretty decent response rate, with roughly 1 person replying each day. I hope that this is because the problem I'm working on is something that my audience relates to, but it might also be that the people I'm reaching out to (developers) are more willing to reply than others, like small business owners.
Overall, these strategies gave me the opportunity to have slightly under 10 conversations, which taught me a lot about the problem I'm trying to solve.
So what have I learnt?
-
Do the manual, one on one, approach first. So, the most learning about the problem I've done so far is from my one on one conversations with people on LinkedIn. When having a one on one conversation, it's much easier to ask the questions that really matter, and also get insight into the personal challenges that the other person faces. It also allows you to build personal connections and therefore leads to go back to when you move on to testing out your MVP. TLDR, the quality of information received from this method was much higher than the rest.
-
Contribute to your community. So this is kinda tied with the first point about why I suggest manual outreach first, but in general, you're not likely to get very useful feedback from posting in communities unless you have contributed and established some sort of credibility first. So, I'd suggest that while you are working on your manual outreach, take the time as well to find some communities which pertain to your product niche and contribute here and there. This way, when you're looking to get more exposure for your product, you will be ready to promote on these communities.
-
If you are technical, build on the weekends. Ok, so the weekend thing is not set in stone, but in general, I've found myself always wanting to tweak the product based on conversations to move it in a certain direction. However, building and distributing can feel very messy if you're moving back and forth all the time, so now I've decided that I'll be setting time aside on the weekends to work on the product or other technical things like the website, and spend the weekdays trying to talk to customers.
So, these are the main lessons I've learnt. Hopefully you've found this post helpful or interesting. I'd love to hear your thoughts or feedback on what I've done, and also suggestions for improving my validation process. Let me know how you validate your ideas too. Cheers!
I once tried validating an idea through cold outreaches in Reddit. One thing I learned was that people really love to talk about their problems and their pain points. Sadly my idea was invalidated though.
Great tips, in particular the ones that take more time, but bring the most value. Thanks for sharing.
Great insights, John! It's inspiring to see your proactive approach to idea validation. I've checked out Visual Backend, and it seems like a promising solution for backend developers. Your experience with Reddit communities and LinkedIn outreach is valuable. Building personal connections and contributing to relevant communities are indeed crucial steps in the validation process. Your emphasis on one-on-one conversations for high-quality feedback is spot on. It's all about nurturing relationships and understanding your audience's pain points. And dedicating weekends to technical work is a smart way to maintain focus. Keep up the great work, and I'm excited to see how Visual Backend evolves! #IdeaValidation #BackendDevelopment
You’re about to not repeat my mistake. Which was building a very similar product for a year only to realize that literally no one needs it.
Good job 👍
Certainly! Here's a shorter summary of your takeaways from one week of trying to validate your idea:
Market Research: Understand your target market.
Iterate and Refine: Be open to adjustments.
Feedback Matters: Gather valuable insights.
MVP is Key: Test your idea with a prototype.
Budget Wisely: Manage resources effectively.
Network & Seek Guidance: Connect with experts.
Patience: Validation takes time.
Data-Driven Decisions: Use evidence for choices.
Be Flexible: Adapt to new information.
Celebrate Progress: Small wins matter.
Gonna talk about it to my dev buddy!
Sweet. I can see myself going down this path. I don’t have a similar idea, but I would have a similar audience.
One thing that worries me is how much you can do this e.g. if you keep pivoting would people get fed up?
Nice idea. I think you are thinking in the right area - how to make things easier but orthogonally to just throwing GPT at the problem. Happy to give feedback just contact me.
Thanks for the kind words! Pivoting is always a tricky topic imo, but I think that's the whole point of validation though - to figure out if you're building something people want. If you're on the right path, you persist, if not you pivot. I think ultimately, if you're not building a product that people want, no one will be frustrated about you pivoting, because they would never have wanted the original product in the first place, and would be much more excited if you started building something that they want!
Thanks for the offer, I've followed you on Twitter, let's talk there :)
I am confused with pivoting. It seems really off-putting that people don't want to back their own ideas, so they rely on technical expertise, which more and more people are attaining.
Maybe what all the talk surrounding pivoting forgets to say is, it doesn't have to be macro pivots in terms of the idea. It can be micro pivots in philosophy and solutions.
Or am I confusing myself because I have gone beyond the idea phase and well into developing and feedback?
I take pivot to mean "micro". It is a small change in direction without losing all your momentum.
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.
If you don't mind I want to recommend a video , a talk give by Kahtryn Minshew, the founder of The Muse. In this talk she talked about acquiring customer from nothing. It is very insightful and I believe it will be helpful for you. Here is the video Kathryn Minshew, Acquiring Your First Users Out of Thin Air, The Lean Startup Conference 2013
Beside that you can also checkout similar article regarding acquiring customer: Acquiring Your First Users Out of Thin Air
Thanks for sharing this! I'll be sure to check it out :)
Does Reddit actuatly work? What are some other channels people use for validating?
Great post, I think your approach is very valuable although (for me at least) also one of the more scary parts. From personal experience I'd say posting on r/Startups can be very valuable, as long as you avoid being seen as just a guy promoting his product. So you did a good job there I guess :)
A good article. For more ideas might want to check out using a business validation tool like DimeADozen ai
Thanks for the article.
I'm on idea validating stage, I created a survey for it and now I need some corrections and also how to share it.
This is really helpful.
Great article. That's a pretty good cold outreach success rate. Did you do anything specific/ special on that?
Thanks! I was actually surprised by that myself too, but two reasons I suspect is firstly developers are quite a friendly niche because they probably understand the struggles of marketing / non-building side of things, and are more willing to help out. Secondly, the tool that I made is for a community that I myself am apart of (developers) and so they may feel more incline to talk to someone similar to themself.
Makes sense. Thanks.
Thanks for the article.
Just looking at point 2 cold outreach - we all get told this is the way to do things but I suspect a lot of us don't do this and I think the reason is human nature (especially developers who are happy just to keep coding as an excuse not to do it).
I was just wondering if you are like myself and were a bit apprehensive on reaching out to people you don't have a previous relationships with on linked in or did you just randomly send the same message to anyone who you saw fit the profile and just get over the shyness?
Also, did you approach them explaining from the outset you have a product you wanted to validate or did you take another approach.
Thanks for the post.
For me, there wasn't a lot of shyness involved because I was reaching out to people who I have never met or talked to, and so there was no "risk" in that sense. But I definitely feel very apprehensive about reaching out to people that I already know, and so I tend to avoid that in the beginning. As for my approach, I try to keep things straight to the point, but also conversational, and so I bring up the problem I'm trying to solve and ask if they've ever experienced it themselves, and go from there.
Thanks for your reply
Remember to not only validate their interest in your product but also that you have a consistent way to reach and sell to your target market.
Agree 100%, nothing beats doing 1 on 1 with your prospect customer/businesses. My general rule of thumb is that if I take 10 people for the survey and if more than 5 agree that they face the "X" problem that my "Y" product could solve, there are high chances of value creation for the masses with that product.
Your approach shows a willingness to learn and adapt, which is crucial for any startup. It's great that you're actively engaging with potential users through Reddit and LinkedIn outreach.
Based on your conversations, what key insights or feedback have you gained that might shape the direction of your product or strategy moving forward?
Hey, thanks for your kind words :) So I learnt about the problems that my users were having, for instance, many found repetition in the basic CRUD process (querying and manipulating data in each endpoint function), and so now in my next validation "phase", I'm going to frame my message towards this area and learn more about it!
I am building a product for developers too. I am afraid that if I don't have a good prototype no one will get what I am trying to build.
Does focusing on development over the weekend help you better analyze how website changes impact users, since it allows for clearer credit assignment?
I'm actually not too sure about this as it's only been one weekend for me so far, but I'll be sure to include this in a future post!
Alright I look forward to hearing about it!
For my side hustle, I also split my time between operation during the weekday and development on the weekend.
Speaking of communities. That's tough. I guess it's better to focus on a few of them (twitter + indie?) rather than aiming to be everywhere.
A word re product itself: It was unclear to me which tech stack it integrates with.
I've noticed a project name from the hero section that suggests it's nodejs, though.
The app looks clean and minimalistic, I really like it.
In the era of SaaS, glad to see I'm not the only one who works on the desktop app.
Thanks for the kind words! Will definitely change the website to reflect clearly that the app is for NodeJS. Are desktop apps not considered Saas too haha
Great points.
Your second point is really important anyway. You want to help a community and therefore you need to be part of it to some extent. It's also just easier to get a meaningful messaging on the way when you are part of the group. Especially subreddits are really sensitive to people marketing their startups/products without offering much in return.
The third point is crazily underrated. The urge to change/fix things immediately after getting feedback is so big. It doesn't have to be the weekend but having one dedicacted day during the week to build things allows you to focus on marketing, positioning, talking to users, .. during the rest of the time.
Thanks for the kind words! I'm definitely still getting the hang of contributing actively to communities and looking forward to learning more about it!
That's where "scratching your own itch" is really helpful. You are automatically part of the community because you have a problem yourself. Also, every community is different and that's really challenging.