Yet another app built without validation 🤦
This is the first project I'm building publicly and I haven't validated the idea! It's a really small app so will only take a week or two of evenings and weekends to complete. It's not like I have anything else to do at the moment.
What does it do?
Allows teams to book into a workspace and sets a limit on attendees, shows them who else is in, keeps a log in case the Government asks.
Why?
The company I work for made a Google Sheet to manage the number of people in the office. There are opportunities in spreadsheets.
Competition
There are a ton of event apps that could be used for this purpose, but they mostly offer a terrible experience for covid office booking as that's not what they're designed for.
There is a Slack app that does basically the same thing but focuses on having a main office per user. This doesn't really suit the company I work for (and hopefully others) as there are multiple spaces in the same building that have separate entrances. I sometimes use shared workspaces which can have any member use any of the individual spaces.
How am I going to do it?
To keep it quick it's going to be a Slack app. I'm hoping that will help users discover the app and get started with it quickly.
Thoughts
- At this stage it seems like a good experiment, I haven't made a Slack app before so it'll be fun to learn about that.
- I came up with this idea around July 2020, it was going to be a web app and I disregarded it as I thought covid would be over before I could get marketing traction.
- I hope this counts as a niche
Want to learn about how I'm building this? Check out my first weekly update!
I wouldn’t worry about validation if you don’t have to. There are levels of validation:
Low level - I have a thing I want to build and it does not need to support me.
Mid level - I have a thing that I’ve heard enough people complain about that I can build, and I might start relying on some of the income from it.
Top level - I absolutely must make enough money to survive from this so I have spoken with enough users (applying The Mom Test of course) to know, not hope but know, it will work.
Extreme level - I am looking for VC funding and need 37 pages of market validation info in my pitch deck.
I think this should be made a part of the next viral startup book.
Thanks! This is definitely low level 🙂
good luck. i personal don't believe in "validation", if you have a problem it's good enough validation. i don't need other people's opinion to build. you build and then let the market validate it.
Yeah, I'm planning to use it to do some price testing.
I like your approach, too much worry around validation, if you can build something quickly you can validate the idea even better...
I think I'm going to do the same with my next project.
Have you got a domain name yet?
I haven't got a domain yet, or even a name. Happy to take suggestions! I like that you're creating info products, it's on my to-do list to write more.
Thanks! Go or the info product route. it worked wonders for me. Basically made more with one info product than with 2 years SAAS.
Just make sure to have an engaged following before launching one. It is very important.
If you feel like it's a small project, skipping validation is probably a good idea, because you'll spend more effort on validation.
On the other hand, at the end of the validation process you have a list/niche/channel to sell to. At the end of the building process you have... just yourself.
I thought validating this would take longer than making it. Hopefully it'll get some customers and I'll make some connections through support 🙂