Thinking of Launching an App? How to Validate Your Idea Without Spending.

This is a guest post I wrote for LIFT Media a few months back that was originally posted to their Medium. Enjoy!

At LIFT, we work with first-time entrepreneurs and startups to bring their ideas to life. We walk alongside our clients through the whole journey — from prototyping and development to launching and iterating.

People come to us with fascinating ideas for digital products that sound great, on paper. As such, we ask our clients to spend time validating their concepts. So to help you figure out if your app or website idea is worth pursuing, we have put together a short guide.

The age old adage in entrepreneurship is that ideas aren’t worth shit — hustle is where it’s at. Every tried-and-tested entrepreneur knows this. Ideas are great, but they are only the starting point; the proverbial basecamp staring up at the Everest-like mountain that is the tech industry.

Entrepreneurship is funny that way — you ditch the comfort of your 8-hour desk job so that you can hustle 18 hours a day to build something from scratch. It’s a daunting task, and it’s certainly not for everybody. But we are sure you have been enticed by the long-term benefits, as well as the trials and tribulations that “carve out a CEO”. But before you decide to take on the journey ahead, you must validate your idea and prove that it’s worth it before you start climbing the mountain that is ahead of you.

Ideas really aren’t worth much more than the paper that they are written on — hustle is where it’s at

Before you get your feet wet, here are 4 recommended ways to valide your next great app or website idea quickly.

Start with the Obvious: Do Your Homework and Get Feedback

So you have an idea and want to know if it’s worth pursuing. The entrepreneurial drive is burning within in you, and you’re already daydreaming about the first 10,000 users. You’re ready to get your skin in the game and to dedicate all of your available resources to create the next great app.

Stop there. Chances are if your ideas are pretty good and provide a value proposition that customers will want, there is probably already someone out there doing it. Before you jump head-first into bringing your concept to life, run a thorough research online to see if the concept already exists, and to give yourself an idea of what’s already out there.

If it does already exist, do not be discouraged. Most wantrepreneurs would quit entirely. For the serious ones, this is a perfect learning opportunity. If the idea is already on the market, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you offer a set of features that the competitor does not?
• Is it possible to satisfy customers better?
• Can you offer value to the businesses already producing your idea?
• Is there a distinct set of users you can target better than the competition?

If you answered any of the above questions in the affirmative, then your concept could be viable and you should dig deeper. In order to backup your answers, try to get some feedback from friends, colleagues in the industry, mentors, or anyone who could be a possible customer. Here are some ideas of where to share your idea:

Facebook — since the majority of your connections are probably on Facebook, it’s a good place to start sharing your concept. Even though your friends and family will likely be “gentler” with their feedback, it’s a good start at bouncing your digital product idea off some people you know have experience or whose opinion you value. Remember, you’re looking for critical feedback to improve your idea — don’t send it to your boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend/mom who thinks everything you touch is brilliant.

LinkedIn — LinkedIn is like Facebook for people who have jobs. Publish a post to get feedback from your immediate connections, or try sharing it with LinkedIn groups to get feedback from thousands of professionals from different backgrounds.

Quora — the Question & Answer website is not only great for getting feedback for your ideas, but also for getting free answers to your most challenging questions. Check this question about startup validation answered by Pipewise CEO Michael Wolfe, or this question about startup productivity answered by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.

Reddit /r/Startups — with close to 100,000 readers, the /r/Startups subreddit is a great community to share your concept and receive unbiased feedback, advice, ideas, and discussion. For example, this post from a user asking for feedback on his startup’s landing page.

Getting out There — Sometimes it’s nice to shut your laptop and meet face to face with people who could help you refine your idea. This option is up to your creativity and can be fun as well as helpful. Here are some cool ideas you can try:

• If you’re a university student, organize a focus group with your peers to discuss. Order a couple of pizzas to entice them, or offer to buy them a drink after.
• Contact people whose opinion you truly value and ask them to take a look at your work, and see if they can offer a professional assessment. You never know if your lawyer friend will identify a key barrier you must overcome, or if your old finance professor sees a mistake in your models.
• Get in with the startup culture in your area — check out meetup.com for startup meets, join Facebook and LinkedIn groups for startups in your city. If there is one close to you, join a Google Campus (we like to hang around the one in Madrid, which is full of designers, developers, and business minds who are generally open to offer some advice).

The 10x Rule for Great Startup Ideas

Peter Thiel

The problem with many first-time entrepreneurs is that they often spend too much time brainstorming good ideas. This is a big problem in the brainstorming stage — as chances are, most of your ideas are pretty good on paper. However, it’s easy to fall into a trap and end up wasting your time on an idea that is simply good.

How can thinking about a good idea be a waste of time? Simple: you shouldn’t be thinking about good ideas, you should be working on great ideas. So how do you differentiate between a good idea and a great idea? We compare the two below:

• Good ideas seek to obtain quick results. Great ideas seek to achieve extraordinary results.
• Good ideas are geared towards making fast bucks. Great ideas sell long-term value relationships to customers.
• Good ideas can wait. Great ideas involve proper timing and execution.

The 10x rule for startups is a great method for determining whether or not your startup idea is great or not. According to legendary entrepreneur and investor, Peter Thiel, “you have to be 10 times better than second best” in order to achieve startup greatness.

If you can’t think of a way that your product can be 10 times better than the competition, it will be hard to sell it in the competitive tech market of today. You will have a hard time trying to differentiate your product from existing solutions, plus customers won’t be willing to switch unless they’re going to get a significant value premium from your concept.

Aim to be 10 times better than second best.

In the words of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Explore what you want to do before committing”. Don’t be dead set on starting a digital product until you are 100% sure that it is a great idea, but be prepared to adapt.

Good Ol’ Pen and Paper

This is a recommended process for the earliest of early stage startups, borrowed from entrepreneur and blogger Justin Jackson (follow him on Twitter for sagely startup wisdom).

One day, while jogging, you have an epiphany and decide to dedicate most of your personal funds (and even more valuable, your time) into creating a digital product. Let’s say your concept is an analytics platform for startups to measure their social media marketing efforts (don’t do this, there are already hundreds).

Firstly, Justin recommends something that, although somewhat obvious, many naive entrepreneurs overlook: don’t start something unless you are genuinely passionate and connected to the idea. Let’s bring this back to our above example of an analytics startup you thought of on your morning run: unless you have done analytics work for a startup, have wide experience using all of the tools available on the market, and have a passion for analytics... it's going to be a rough ride.

“Try to think of something 100 people will love, not something that 1 million people will kind of like”.

But if analytics really is your thing, and you are deeply interested and connected to the subject, you are ready to take the first baby steps towards working on your idea. Jackson recommends that you grab a piece of paper and pen, and write out the names of 5 people that need your product.

Sound easy? Justin explains that “this is an effective test because it makes it real. If you built this thing, who would buy it?”. So if you can’t think of 5 concrete examples of custoers, that’s a definite red flag. Take a step back and reevaluate your concept by answering the following question — Is your product targeting a group of people that you don’t yet have a connection with?

This exercise helps you keep you grounded to reality instead of floating away with your imagination. Identify the actual human need that your idea plans to solve, and for whom you are building it for. Justin’s exercise helps you identify exactly who your potential customers are, which will help shape your concept. In the words of Airbnb founder Brian Chesky, “build something 100 people love, not something that 1 million people kind of like”.

Try to Determine Your Product/Market Fit by Creating a Target Customer Profile

Image courtesy of: http://leanstartup.co/

Product/market fit is a business concept popularised by American investor, entrepreneur, and software engineer Marc Andreessen. It is defined as “the degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand”.

According to Andreessen, “the life of any startup can be divided into two parts — before product/market fit and after product/market fit”. Furthermore, “When you are BPMF, focus obsessively on getting to product/market fit. Do whatever is required to get to product/market fit”, he added.

So how can product/market fit help you determine whether or not your idea is worth pursuing? Paul Graham said it best: “Make things people want”. Of course, establishing product/market fit is an ongoing process that should influence many of your strategic decisions; however, it can also be a valuable early-stage check to make sure that your idea is worth pursuing.

Interested in learning more about product/market fit? Check out Ash Maurya’s Slideshare on the 10 Steps to Product/Market Fit

A great exercise for determining whether people “want” your digital product is to envision a target customer persona. You can do so by “creating” a person with all of the qualities of your ideal customer. Here is a list of example characteristics you should define in your target customer profile:

• Background — Where does your customer work? What is their profession and title? What is their education?
• Demographics — How old is your customer? What is your customer’s income?
• Personalities — Is your customer risk-averse or a risk taker? Are they sensitive to price?
• Identifiers — What buzz words does your customer react to? What labels or groups does your customer subscribe to?
• Goals — What does your customer want to achieve? What obstacles does your customer want to overcome?

This is not an exhaustive list; you can always add or update characteristics of your target customer.

Creating a target customer persona is a great activity for validating your digital product idea. It helps you identify your value proposition for a particular customer segment, and how you plan to develop a relationship. If you are able to supply value to this theoretical customer, then your idea has merit and you should consider pursuing it.