How to Validate a Business Idea For Free

“Yeah I have a great business idea you say in excitement”. You start planning ahead, thinking of starting a company, hiring a team and so on. But after few moments, reality bites and you think “How do I Validate my Business Idea”. This is the dilemma most of the start-up face or when a business wants to introduce new service or product-line.

Therefore to overcome this situation, you need to check this one important thing

Look for the problem which your product or service solves:  Let’s say you are planning to develop a software that is planning to automate the admin and routine task in a company then draft this question “ What Problem is my Software Going to Solve”. Then list down these problems

It could be on

• Time
• Productivity
• Cost

The list can go on….

 Then you come up with questions like:

• How to reduce time on office daily tasks
• How to enhance productivity in office hours
• Is there any software that automate the routine task
• How I can save time daily on mundane jobs

Again the above list is just an example.

Find out how many people are looking for solution to these problems:  In this case Google is your friend.  Go to Google Ad words and put the above questions in the Ideas section and then Google will throw up related ideas and search volumes. 

Evaluate The Data:  Once you find that there are decent search volumes, then find out the companies who are providing similar service as to what you are planning. Study their product or software.  If there is good number of companies, it is a sign not confirmation that your idea is viable.

 Above exercise gives you a head-start, but does not guarantee success. Success will purely depend on the implementation and how you communicate and deliver value to your target customers.