Every wondered what is the purpose of market validation? Particularly when mentoring young entrepreneurs, it’s a problem I hear a lot.
The process of determining if the brand is of value to a particular target audience is called market validation. Business testing includes a series of consumer interviews with people in your target audience, and it takes place almost always before you make a major investment in your product/concept.
The purpose of this article is quite simple: to provide some practical tips for entrepreneurs to validate their ideas quickly. Through this article, we also want to help you all realize that, by taking a few simple (and often free) steps, even a first-time entrepreneur can launch successful products.
After using lean business validation to release a range of software products, namely ProductPlan, we’ve found that even novice entrepreneurs can sell great products to enthusiastic customers on the first day with the correct process.
Below are our tips to use lean market verification to verify whether you have a customer-fit product/business. Through simply engaging with real people and asking the right questions, you can determine whether your solution solves a problem, who are your potential buyers, and whether or not your company has a demand.
1. Writing Down The Product Concept
Just the mere act of writing encourages you to look at things you might have glossed over before. I’m not speaking about writing a “business plan.” (For companies, a business plan isn’t time-consuming and will change as soon as you talk to prospective clients).
I’m thinking about resolving a couple of key questions you can go out and seek. These are your theories, and the faster you can evaluate them, the less threat they pose when you release your product.
So you can write down some of the basic questions/assumptions which you have and go out to test later on. Some of them can be:
- Who are your target customers?
- What all problems are your product solving?
- How do they solve those?
- What are the key features?
2. Deciding
Fifty-four hours go quickly at Startup Weekend, and you don’t even realize they’re gone! The very same concept applies to real-world startups. There is a lack of time and resources. There is no need to agonize about the information that may actually be meaningless.
Lean market validation also allows good successful teams to collect just enough data and information to take their calls. And then they’re doing it. We like to obey the 80% rule — just get enough (valid) data from consumer interviews and other information sources and then make a decision. Essentially, you will never have 100% confidence, so getting close will take an excessive amount of time.
3. Well, Most Of Everything You’ve Written Down Are Assumptions
That takes us to our third point: everything that you’ve been writing down, all the discussions that you’ve had, they all are mere assumptions! Teams frequently take these conversations (and what’s in their minds) as reality when they’re just theories that need to be checked.
When testing theories, I like to think about the scientific method— how can they be evaluated?
We often see teams debating minor details and wasting valuable time instead of taking a guess (or a quick decision), and then heading out into the real world to check if it’s the right idea. Just make an educated guess and get started, because your conclusions could turn out to be wrong, and you’re going to have wasted valuable time arguing something that didn’t really matter in the first place (not to mention the toll on team dynamics).
4. Figure Out The Truth By Getting Out To Test Your Assumptions
Once you have made some clear choices and have written down your ideas, get out to check them to see if they work with potential clients.
Lean market validation is based on consumer interviews with your product’s potential buyers. You can also check the conclusions by expert interviews (e.g., market experts, company staff, consultants, etc.). There are also some great ways of landing pages and cheap advertising to test online concepts.
5. Start With Your Network
We’re also asked if groups would find opportunities to talk with quickly. We suggest working to meet potential customers with your own network and networks of colleagues, advisors, investors and others.
They are friendly to your cause, the downside to interviewing people in your network. It means that in your education you are incorporating some potential bias. Yet we feel that it’s easier to have some prejudice than not to interview and get closer to the truth.
6. Interview Them
We’re not thinking about a cursory discussion when we discuss interviews (or worse, a survey). Begin with a simple question list but deviate as you gain more details from the questions. Approach the discussion with a sense of adventure about the problem and needs of the client, and you will gain some precious insight.
7. Ask “Why?”
“Why?”The biggest question you can pose is by far. With it, consumers can get closer to the truth. Sadly, this query is not commonly used enough — too many individuals ask a question, and then take a face value answer. It’s a wasted opportunity to consider motivation and to affirm what someone is trying to do.
8. Find The Value Proposition
They urge marketers to concentrate less on functionality and to illustrate their product’s value proposition. What does it mean? A value proposition is the anticipated benefits from using the brand that a consumer will get. Price, such as time saved or additional revenue gained, can be measurable. It is generally easy to calculate this.
Yet quality can also be subjective, such as relieving pain or benefiting from the lifestyle of your company. You will set the brand apart from the competition by fully knowing and recording this qualitative quality through customer interviews.
9. Learn: Liking Your Idea Isn’t Same As Buying Your Product
Sadly, it is subjective to validate a product idea to prospective clients. There is no solution in black and white. Yes, since people are usually nice and want to please you, you need to be cautious to acknowledge their responses at face value.
If someone enthusiastically tells you “it sounds great,” or “that’s an interesting idea,” your first reaction should be “why?””It is important to realize that someone who likes your idea is not the same as buying the product. During your lean market validation process, your goal is to remove as much as possible of these “false positives.”
10. Jump Off The Cliff & Enjoy!
And many continue to build and market their start-up concept.
we always advise to the budding entrepreneurs to take that risk, jump off the edge, and have a good time with the experience of lean market validation.
See Also –
In a lean startup, the role of a Technical Program Manager (TPM) is to help validate the product or service that the startup is developing. The TPM’s job is to work with the startup’s product development team to ensure that the product or service is being developed in a way that addresses the needs of the target customer and that it can be brought to market quickly and efficiently.
One of the main responsibilities of a TPM in a lean startup is to ensure that the product development process is as efficient and streamlined as possible. This may involve identifying and implementing agile development methodologies, using tools like Kanban or Scrum, or working with cross-functional teams to ensure that development efforts are coordinated and aligned with overall business objectives.
Another important responsibility of a TPM in a lean startup is to work closely with the startup’s customer development team to validate the product or service with potential customers. This may involve conducting customer interviews or surveys, gathering feedback, and using that information to make decisions about which features or aspects of the product to prioritize.
TPM also helps with the startup’s go-to-market strategy, developing product launch plans and determining the most effective channels for reaching customers. TPM also works to minimize development risks, and continuously assesses the product’s progress, suggesting course corrections and adjustments as necessary to ensure that it is on track to meet its goals.
In an agile environment, the program/features that required development now needed to be scoped, planned and executed all at once. This meant that the technical program manager would be responsible for fully understanding the technical aspects of the work that needed to be done.
AppdevCost is developing a CXO Simulator to help entrepreneurs, who are at the Idea stage or yet to launch their product, by simulating their startup in the real market with real data.