Part 1: Idea to MVP - Validate your idea!

You have an Idea!

Well, where does it come from? Does it come from your experience, a pain point, or an observation that you made while interacting with others? No matter what the source, Idea needs to be cultivated step by step. As they say, Ideas are like flowers, if you water them - they grow; if you ignore them - they fizzle out. 
Action Tip from India Startup Igniters: Create a notebook and continue to take notes on your idea. Let them be random notes, but write down your observations. 

An Idea, Product and the Market!

Before we get into the details, it is important to understand that no-one will ever pay you for an idea, it's the product that sells. Understanding the difference between an Idea and a Product is the first step towards building a viable product that customers want. 

Action Tip: Start analyzing how will your Idea shape up as a product? Some random sketches, mindmaps etc will do. 

Anyone who is dabbling with an idea should understand that their IDEA needs to be converted into a PRODUCT, and every product needs a MARKET. If you can't reach the Market where you need to sell the product, the product is of no use. It won't make a difference. 

Action Tip: Understand the market for your product, start researching your market at the idea stage. 

The Customers

When someone says that you need to reach your market, they mean that you need to reach your customers who are potential buyers of the product. Potential buyers are those people who need or want your product. Understanding your customers and their needs is the key to building a successful startup. 

Action Tip: Develop Personas to understand customers better. For example: John is a couch potato who likes to browse entertainment channels, he is my potential customer. 

Before you go hook, line, and sinker - Validate your Idea!

It is important to Validate your Idea before you start investing time, energy and money into building a product. Validating your idea requires you to analyze the landscape clearly by asking yourself a collection of questions that help steer you towards a tangible answer. Let's look at some of the questions:

Validate your Idea: Have others tried to solve the same problem?

Sometimes it is important to carefully analyze the competition and other people who may have come up with the same or similar idea. Have they tried to solve the same problem? Did they succeed? Did they fail? If they failed, why? 
A successful Idea to Product transition requires a feasibility study. Maybe others failed because it's not practical to convert an idea into a product: maybe it's too expensive, maybe it's too complex, maybe it requires a technology that has not been invented yet, maybe its illegal to do it. If these roadblocks are unsurmountable then it's better to drop the idea. 

At times, you may have a similar product in the market, but your product maybe at a better price point, it may have additional features, it may be easy to use, or it may navigate the regulations and compliance better. In that case, you should continue to convert your idea into a feature set.

Validate your Idea: Does your idea provide any benefits?

Can you list 3 tangible benefits that your idea (potential product) provides for the customers? A customer will not pay for a product that does not provide any long term benefits. Even if your product is free, the customer will not revisit your offering if he / she does not see incremental value in engaging with you and your offering. 

Action Tip: You can conduct a survey with your family and friends to sharpen the value proposition. Your idea needs to be convincing enough for them to pay you in terms of their time or money. 

Validate your Idea: Have you tried to convert your idea into a feature set?

A software or hardware is a collection of features / parts that come together to form a single unit. Have you tried to write down the features that are mutually exclusive but collectively exhaustive? In case of a hardware product, can you list out the various subsystems and bill of material of all the parts that may be required to build that system?

Ideas are dime a dozen but converting an Idea into a tangible feature set that can be called a cohesive product takes a lot of time, energy, and intellect. As they say, the devil lies in details.

Action Tip: Create a document and list out all the features that collectively describe your product. If you can't do that, then either you are not serious about building the product or you simply can't narrow down on the value proposition. In such cases, generally, the idea is not worth pursuing. 

Validate your Idea: Can your idea be copied easily?

Let's say, you spent time and energy developing an idea into a collection of features. Customers like your product and you start to see some traction in the market. Next morning you wake up and find a replica of your product making rounds of the same market at a better price point. Your competitor discovered your product, had enough capacity and resolve to replicate it at a larger scale and push it in the market, thereby destroying your chance. 

News Flash: This happens more often than you think. A number of products fizzle out because they are very easy to replicate, don't hold any patent to protect themselves or simply have bad execution. 

If you think your idea can be replicated easily but still has something unique in it, then go and patent the idea, even better, the product. Without a patent or a copyright, you don't stand a chance if your idea can be replicated easily. 

Validate your Idea: Do you understand the market?

Understanding your market is the key development of a good product. There are many dimensions that come into play. From Government regulations to cost of transportation to quality of service to supply chain, amongst others. For a wannabe entrepreneur, it is important to carefully understand the opportunities, and constraints that a market brings. For example: If you want to build a crowdfunding website in India, SEBI (the government regulator) may have a problem with it, as they do not have a proper crowdfunding law in place, as yet. 
Action Tip: Look for competitors of your idea / product and research them, if they can do it, most probably you can do it too. Once you have established that you are in compliance, then work to understand the market size and create market segments that you want to target. 

Let's say you want to reach 50 million people as the first push for your product in India, you can do that simply by targeting New Delhi and Mumbai. Around 50 million people live in these two ple live in these two cities combined. 

Validate your Idea: Have you tried to reach out to your potential customers?

Customer is the king. You may think that you know what the customers want. Better yet, you can reach out to your potential customers to understand what do they really need and want? Getting the pulse of the customer may help you tweak and sharpen your feature set even if you know what your customers want. It does not hurt to reach out to customers early on during Idea Validation stage. 

Action Tip: Start with family and friends, ask for an honest opinion about your idea and collect the feedback. Once done, carefully brainstorm the feedback with some experts. It may help you validate or invalidate your idea.

Validate your Idea: Can you develop the product?

As they say, 1 point for strategy and 9 points for execution. If you have a nice idea that you can't execute upon, and convert it into a product, then that idea is of no use. In order to develop the product, you will need help of some other people, maybe a team, maybe you will have to outsource the prototype. 
Any which way, you will need to design and develop the product, either on your own or with a team. Ask yourself a question: do you have the capability and resources to pull this through? If you do, then go ahead, if you don't then your options are limited.

Wither you find a co-founder who has the resources to help you or (if validated) sell or give away your idea for the larger good.

In other words, if you can't develop an idea then you should give it away if you feel it can really make a difference in someone else's hands. 

Validate your Idea: Do you have a team?

It's the same as "ability to develop". Startups are a team sport. If you don't have a team to help you get to an MVP, barring exceptions, it's a great idea to find co-founders and team members who compliment your skills. Get this straight in your head: you can't be everywhere and do everything. You need a team, and you need to assemble a team based on capability not friendships. A sure shot way to make your startup go down the drain is to hire friends who may not be that capable. 

Action Tip: Go to meetups, network with like minded people and continuously pitch your idea to potential team mates. Instill confidence in them by showing them how well prepared you are with your feature set and product requirements document. Give them a feeling: This train is leaving, with you or without you. 
Caution: Avoid working with people who do not want to take risks and promise only part time support with their work being their main priority. They will take bigger shares, will become a roadblock in front of VCs and will add little or no value. 

Validate your Idea: Why should an investor invest in your idea?

You need to have a clear value proposition for your idea / product for an investor to be interested. At the end of the day, investors are looking for a return on their investments. If your idea is a non-profit org, then you are looking for donators not investors. 

If you are convinced that your idea is viable, then you need to start thinking about a viable business model. Investors are very intelligent people, they can smell a good opportunity very quickly. 

Let's say your idea has been validated!

Validating your idea by asking yourself questions related to viability, customers, markets, and investors helps you avoid the common pitfalls of creating a startup that won't work. If wannabe entrepreneurs make it a habit to validate their product, they will see the red flags early on; long before they have invested a fortune in their idea with burnt money, relationships and morale. 

If you have validated your idea and have checked all the boxes, you are ready to take your idea to the next stage. It's time to create product requirements document. Let's get down to the feature set.