4 Effective and cheap ways to validate your business idea

Hendri Augustine Sugiarto -
“It’s important to validate your business idea because everything depends on it at first.”

In exploring the new business, it’s important to validate the idea you have from its early development to make sure it will be your gate to success. You will have to validate your idea to know the potential impact of your goals. You can lead your business to the downfall if you jump into the market without a valid idea and find out that your product is not what most people need or want. According to the research by CB Insight on failed startups, 42 % of the business failure happened due to no market need. Now, we will give some insights on how you validate your idea without spending tons of money into market research.

1. Do Your Research

Business is always about statistics. The way to it is through proper research. That research can be done through the internet. From your research, you can see whether your idea already exists or not. Then you can start by using Google Trends to see what is the trend when people search for a solution that your business idea will produce for them. This tool based on Google Search and it will let you know how often a particular word is used by people when they search something on Google.

The result from Google Trends comes from across various regions of the world and in various languages. As for the customer experience and market situation, you need in-depth research using valid data. When you look for any data on the internet make sure you follow these guidelines:

  1. The source of data must be reputable
  2. Data must still be relevant today
  3. You have a comparison data, and
  4. Never blind trust one data.

2. Create a Survey

Another good way to validate your idea is by doing a survey. Create a simple survey with tools like Typeform consists no longer than 5 questions. Keep questions clear and straight to the point. You should match these questions with the data you need. A basic question can be about your target demographic, such as:

  • Name,
  • Age
  • Gender,
  • Profession,
  • Or household income.

You can also assess market and pricing, by asking:

  • Do they want to use the product or not?
  • How often they’ll use it?
  • How much they would pay for it?

This is both an effective and interactive way to get to know your real potential customers about their needs, wants, and expectations.

3. Create A Prototype

You can also create a prototype by yourself using tools like Adobe XD or Marvel app. Show the prototype to people and see what they think about it. For example, if you want to produce drone cases, you can buy the material and create a case based on your design. After you have received the prototype or product you are reselling, you will want to see if customers are interested in making a purchase. Then you can use these several consumer testing methods:

  • Create an online storefront and try to take orders (you can also add a few online ads by Google AdWords to direct your potential customers).
  • Start an online Kickstarter project
  • Build an online landing page and collect email addresses of interested customer

4. Learn From The Others

Start surveying someone you already know. See your email contacts, WhatsApp contact, and talk to them. Avoid sending template message, remember that you're the one that asks them favour. You may want to ask another entrepreneur with more experience in building and running their own business. Asking one of your friends or family is fine, but make sure he/she can give you an objective answer.

Entrepreneurs usually have good and broad networking. So if they can’t give you the advice you need, they will know someone who can. Some entrepreneurs usually have built more than one business. They can be a good resource for idea validation. It will help you a lot to determine the best type of idea to apply in the business.

Conclusion

Validating your idea will lower your risk of building something you think they want, but turns out they don't. It will let you know how interested the customers to a product your business wants to produce and whether the idea is worth pursuing or not. The process of validating your business idea is getting easier and cheaper with the help of technology. So money shouldn’t be a big problem. However, it might be hard for you to walk away from the idea, especially when it’s exciting, but your time and money are more important. You can look for something else that worth pursuing. Keep generate more ideas and you will find the right one to be your fuel in the journey to success.

Rock Paper Scissors is the missing link between business and technical world. We translates business language into technical, and technical limitation into business constraints. We guide organization and individuals alike to create their own digital product and navigates all the complexity of product creation process. Find out more.

References

https://startupnation.com/start-your-business/validate-business-idea/

https://www.entrepreneurshipinabox.com/12610/validate-business-idea-succeed/

https://id.oberlo.com/blog/idea-validation-13-best-ways-validate-business-idea