Business idea validation checklist

Unfortunately, we business owners often have it backward: 

We make the mistake of building their products and services around what we want to share, teach and sell. 

But if you want people lining up to buy your products, programs or services — and raving about it to all of their friends — you need to think about what your audience wants, not what you want. 

You need to think about how you can help them experience the transformation they’ve been looking for…NOT the transformation you happen to want for them.

Do this before you launch a new product or service

Once you are ready to start your program, product or service, there are a number of things you should do before jumping into launching your brand and website and building your business. You must start with validating your product or service idea first. It will save you time and money and saves you the pain and disappointment of building a product or service nobody is excited about!

Does your product idea solve a specific problem, need or desire? In other words, what is the clear outcome that your product or service will deliver? What benefit will your client derive?

This is about getting very specific about your ideal customer — the person for whom your product or service has been designed.

One key question is if these people are actually willing and able to invest in what you have to offer? You can have the best idea in the world, but if your target market can’t invest in it, you need to go back to the drawing board.

You will only be wasting your time getting lost thinking about your brand colors and business cards if you haven't yet spoken to potential clients to be sure you understand their problems. Instead of working as hard as you can getting everything ready behind the scenes before you launch, (and expecting it to be perfect) you should first focus on finding a product or service that meets the needs of real people who would actually pay you for it.

Remember that building the product or service isn't going to make you money– selling does that! So your objective should be to get to sales as quickly as possible so that you can stay in business.

The good news is that you only need to have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) ready before you can, to talk about it and advertise it. In other words, you only need to create a small-scale version of your product/service before you can start selling!

Once you have that, you can go out and test to see what the response to it is like and use that to inform your product development. So even though you may not be completely ready with the fully fledged version of your product/service, you will get real feedback on the first stage of it. All you need is something that gives people the idea of what the final version will be. So for example, if you’re creating a course, perhaps you design the first module and then test that.

THE KEY QUESTIONS ARE:

• What problem does your product/service solve?

• Who has the problem and is it someone I want to work with?

• What tools/resources are available right now to help that person deal with the problem?

• How is your product/service better than their existing solutions?

• Are they willing to pay to have their problem solved?

• Are they willing or able to pay me enough that it’s worth my while?

• Can I help people and have a great time doing it?

Once you have fleshed out your answers to those questions, it’s time to start validating your idea by interviewing your ideal potential customers. You should try to find somewhere around 5–10 people to start. Remember to ask relatively open-ended questions, and focus on listening to exactly what they say, and be prepared to respond with more questions.

Your goal is to really get to know your potential clients and to really care about the things they struggle with. You should feel drawn to help them solve their problems and feel excited that you can actually do that!

Here's the thing. If you don't feel that connection, perhaps you haven't found the right service or product to build. To be successful, your business idea must also satisfy your need to serve as this will give you a deeper sense of purpose for your business.

OPTION 1: FACE TO FACE INTERVIEWS

These can be in person or online. Just email your 5-10 people and ask them when they can meet for a chat.

OPTION 2: ONLINE SURVEYS

Use online surveys to validate your business idea by collecting real-time feedback. You can also collect demographic information or other useful customer data in this way.

• Google Forms – Create beautiful online forms and surveys for free.

• Survey Monkey – Online surveys and questionnaires.

• Typeform – Beautiful form creator so you can more easily collect registrations, onboard new clients or survey your visitors.

• Wufoo – Online forms and surveys.

OPTION 3:  ADVERTISE

Another way to validate demand for your product/service, is to place ads online such as on Facebook or even on Craigslist or in a local newspaper and measure the response. You'll list a product or service for sale –even if haven't finished building it yet. Based on the response, you'll know if you have something good or if you need to back to the drawing board.

OPTION 4: CROWDFUNDING

Another way to validate an idea is crowdfunding. This is a great way to see if people will respond to your idea while building a list of potential future customers at the same time! If the crowdfunding campaign doesn't do well, that also gives you plenty of data to work with.

The only drawback with this method is that you do have to have your pledge awards ready before you start the campaign, and delivering all of these can be quite overwhelming for businesses in startup stage.

Once you have some responses, you need to look for patterns in those responses. For example, is your service targeting a very specific customer demographic? (e.g. working women between 35 and 50). If you have two segments, (e.g. working vs non working women) does one seem to have more interest in your service than the other?

Once you are clear on the profile of the customer who most warmly responded to your ideas, then you can focus on how to solve their problems.

USEFUL REFERENCES

• While there is no shortage of business books to choose from, if you are at startup stage and want to explore the idea of validating business models, I recommend The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries, which is an enjoyable read packed with useful info.

• Conducting a marketing assessment before you launch is an important step in making sure your product is profitable. If you would like a certified StoryBrand guide to review your marketing materials and give you tips on launching a profitable product or service package book a call here.