Validating Ideas Part 2 | Quickest, Lightest, Cheapest, Best

Now I’ve given a few cases of things that are NOT validation – someone saying they like your idea for example – it’s time to talk about ways you validate your idea. The focus here is on the quickest, lightest, cheapest and best methods of validation.

First though… one REALLY important point…

Validation Never Ends

To be painfully clear; the first validation of your idea is just to give you enough basic confidence to take the first small to medium step. Validation is an ongoing process, it needs to be built in – baked in – to your business processes.

If you're taking a step, spending money, taking risks, and you don't have some fresh validation that what you're doing is likely to succeed... why are you doing it?

Quickest

One of the most important factors in validating your idea or business, is to do it quickly… but not to validate it as being successful. If you need to work on your idea some more, you want to find that out as quickly as you can. Everything else is being in denial – you want those challenges as early as you can get them, so you can fix issues and craft something better.

Here’s a few examples:

• Googling – this probably sounds stupid, but have you Googled your idea to see what’s out there? I mean REALLY Googled, searched as though you want to find that it already existed rather than justifying your existing decisions? Finding 1-10 similar, failed or low take-up concepts to yours gives you free insights into what you might need to do differently to succeed where they didn’t.
• Polls on Social channels – you might be scared to share your ideas in this way because you feel like someone might steal it. Rest assured, unless you have invented a water powered car – no one cares. If you can catch a good enough sample size, polls are quick ways to target features and gauge appetite.
• Creating a Validation ‘team‘ – as I mentioned in the last post, having multiple people to take your ideas apart is horrible tasting but powerful medicine for being in denial. Pulling together a mix of people from different backgrounds – not just mentor types or seasoned entrepreneurs – from multiple ages, ethnicities, lifestyles… is one of the quickest ways to see the reach of your idea and spot issues your privilege (or lack of privilege) might otherwise conceal.

Lightest

Hand in hand with ‘quickest’ goes lightest – validation is incredibly important, but it also shouldn’t need to take a month of preparation and energy for you to get responses.

• Surveys – a good survey can get you all the answers you need, in a single pass… that’s why in my opinion they are one of the lightest methods to get strong validation of your ideas. The only problem with a survey is getting one that genuinely challenges your ideas instead of reinforcing them. My tip is to get someone else who isn’t in already in love with the idea to write it for you – explain the information you need, and resist the urge to soften every question. Your idea needs truth not love.
• Networking & Events – although the current pandemic has mutated the opportunities for networking, even online versions can be a powerful way to bring people together and get feedback on your ideas. Events bring together people who love ideas. Avoid ‘pitching’ events when your idea is in this early stage because their formality tends to reduce their usefulness for gathering feedback. Have 2-3 of your most pressing questions ready, write them down if you can, and then ask them of people in a friendly way. Ask for emails if people aren’t in the mood.
• Pick a specialist – within your network, or at least relatively easy to find, will be specialists. To be clear – I don’t mean mentors, and I don’t mean seasoned entrepreneurs – I mean people who are operating within a similar sector to that of your idea. If you can get some time with someone who works in a close industry – even a potential competitor – they won’t be able to help themselves telling you what the market issues are, and the restrictions and limitations… which is actual gold at your early stage, in helping you navigate around them.

Cheapest

We’re leaving the realms of free and ‘no technical skills required’ and entering the arena of paid validation. If you’re going to/are able spend some money, here’s a few things you can do that won’t be a waste of your limited resources.

• One Page Website/Landing Page – having a website, even for a pre-startup idea, is worth every penny. It is a multi-purpose tool, giving your idea legitimacy, giving you a landing page for early validation campaigns (see below), helping you focus your message – which is in itself a form of validation, because if you can’t easily and simply explain your idea, how will anyone else understand it?
• Typeform/Jotform – if you don’t have a website, or even if you do, Typeform and similar are excellent, reasonably priced tools to gather feedback and engage potential customers. Make sure to capture email and other contact details (and agreement to use them) and you have your first group of test customers. Share them via social channels, email them to your growing network – or, for most effective coverage…
• Paid Social Adverts – it’s incredibly cheap compared to other traditional marketing tools to advertise on Facebook. It’s only semi-technical to set up, and you can tweak your audience as much as you like – it will walk you through it. If your advert is asking an engaging question, solving a problem, or teasing something cool… people WILL click on it. Link the ad to your one page website or Typeform survey, and you have a validation funnel – one you can tweak again and again to ask more focused questions.

Best

The reality is that the best way to validate your idea is to use ALL of the above, and other ideas, in the most creative combinations you can… starting with the quickest and lightest, before moving on to cheap paid options – and eventually your MVP/prototype.

Remember – at this stage, we are still just talking about validating an idea, not an actual product. The products first/final form should come from your idea + the changes that validating it suggests.

Let me tell you a story about someone who had an idea – let’s call them Bob. Bob’s idea was for a new type of product, but he didn’t know whether the product would sell. Here’s what he did:

• Bob created a CGI mock-up of that product, and a super basic brand for the product
• Bob created a one page website, including a non-monetary checkout form to allow people to commit to buying the product and enter their account details.
• Bob created social ad campaigns to drive potential customers to the one page website.

The campaign was a huge success – 1000’s of customers ‘bought’ the product, and entered their details. Bob had full validation of the saleability of their product, for a minimal outlay – much cheaper than the minimum order quantities for manufacturing that product!

At that point, Bob messaged all the customers, apologised that due to high demand they were out of stock, but gave an updated supply date for the full product. They then pressed go on the manufacture of the product, in full confidence that they had a waiting market.

None of the above components of validation are particularly expensive, they are quick to set up, and require minimal technical knowledge. Like everything else listed here, they are completely within your reach. If the campaign had failed, the money and time saved on building a real prototype or first version would have far outweighed the cost of the validation.

No one can get you to that point where you’re confident that your idea is validate – you have to get there yourself, especially as it’s more than likely going to be your time and money being spent. But when you do, it’s time to talk about getting the first version of your idea created – whatever you call it – a prototype, an MVP, a basic version.