How to Validate your Startup Ideas

Apr 19, 2021

Validating startup ideas means to gauge the interest of your target market before you release your offering to the public. It is essential to validate your startup ideas to ensure that you don’t spend months and an exorbitant amount of money producing a product that no one will ultimately buy.

 

In fact, the top reason startups fail is because they make products that lack market demand:

Top 20 Reasons Startups Fail

 

There are a number of ways to verify whether an adequate market exists for your product and what amount of success you can expect with your idea. Namely:

  • Ask people to pay for your idea and assess their responses – The most effective way to prove your concept is to find out whether people will actually pay for your idea. To accomplish this, create a landing page using a tool such as LaunchRock and find out how many people will preorder your product. Some people who try this method have their products display as “sold out” once visitors click “buy” on their websites, and build a mailing list with email addresses of those visitors. If you have a physical product, another option is to create a minimal viable product/prototype, take it to tradeshows, and find out how people respond when you ask them to sign up to buy it.
  • Make sure your target market has a sufficient size and growth rate – Can you estimate how many people would use your offering per year? Is the number of people in your target market growing at an adequate rate year by year? Perhaps, key phrase analysis tools like Google TrendsGoogle Keyword Planner, and LongTailPro can give you adequate answers.
  • Solve a clearly defined problem – If you can’t clearly state the problem your product or service solves, you probably don’t have an idea that can succeed. The offerings that don’t need to abide to this rule are usually entertainment offerings.
  • Use consumer survey tools to gauge interest – Consumer survey tools are great ways to determine the demographics of who is most interested in your offering, what they’re most prominent concerns are, and what features they most care about.
    • Examples of questions you could ask in a consumer survey:
      • Multiple Choice: How likely would you consider buying [your offering]?
      • Multiple Choice: What is the most common frustration when using (existing service]?
      • Multiple Choice: What is the most you would pay for [your offering]?
      • Open-Ended Text: What features would most entice you to buy [your offering]?
      • Multiple Choice: Which of the following is the best name for [your offering]?
      • Multiple Choice: Which of the following slogans is best for [your offering]?

 

Choosing Question Formats with Google Consumer Surveys

Choosing Question Formats with Google Consumer Surveys

 

Consumer Survey Tools

  • Pickfu.com – This tool lets you compare the results of two concepts or images at a time. You start seeing results within a few minutes. It’s great for:
    • Product/service names
    • Tag lines
    • Book titles
    • Book covers
    • Webpage designs
    • Domain names
    • Product/service prices
    • App icons
  • Google Consumer Surveys – This tool lets you choose multiple types of questions and choose your target audience. The results roll in within hours. The tool also provides helpful insights pertaining to outliers in your results data.
  • SurveyMonkey Audience – SurveyMonkey Audience has millions of people ready to take your surveys. You simply design your own survey, pick your custom audience, launch your project, and start seeing results.
  • Survato.com – This tool provides consumer feedback for any business decision. You create a survey, they target consumers to answer it, and you get answers fast. The website’s free eGuide, “Clever Ways Marketers Use Consumer Surveys,” is extremely helpful.

Idea Validation Tool

QuickMVP is a simple tool that helps you test any new business idea in just 5 minutes. MVP = Minimum Viable Product.

Features:

  • Customer Interviews – Document and quantify the needs of potential customer segments
  • Landing Pages – Build a website for your solution and test if customers will sign-up
  • Unit Economics – Calculate key business metrics like profit margin and market size

Prelaunch Customer Acquisition Tool

LaunchRock – A website builder dedicated to early customer acquisition. Publish a landing page in minutes, promote to the Launchrock audience and on social media sites, and analyze your ongoing results.

 

Sources:

http://joopcrijk.com/startup-business-failure/

https://medium.com/lean-startup-mvp/how-to-start-a-startup-e4f002ff3ee1

http://fortune.com/2014/09/25/why-startups-fail-according-to-their-founders/

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