Tips to validate startup ideas
So you have an inspiration to begin a startup, what is the next move?
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So you have an inspiration to begin a startup, what is the next move? How do you know that the idea is good enough to make you profit? At the end of the day, your idea is only worth it if your target audience finds it beneficial. You should be able to deliver a product that is both innovative and useful to your potential customers. The bottom line is that you have to come up with something that people will be willing to pay for. So looking at market demands and testing your idea before you launch it is necessary.
To begin with, let’s discuss the main tips and steps you should take into account when you validate your startup idea. If you use these tips, you won't have to worry about wasted time on an idea that would only result in losses. As such, StarNavi has provided a closer look at the steps on idea validation for startups.
1. Find Information: Inspiration is a Great Start but What About Doing Research?
How hard is it to do a little but research? We think this needs to be talked about more in the context of small startups who expand. As well, it’s important to pay attention to the go-to research tools and/or useful and reliable resources.
So are you having a hundred tabs open in your browser? Your research should be more about process. Before you start any project it helps if you have all the necessary data. Many times, small details are overlooked, which could ultimately make a huge difference:
- Believe us, you want to make sure that you’ve made a research on similar products,
- Check out competitors and successful startups,
- Check if your idea is completely new (which is a rare thing today) or if there are similar products out there to follow ideas,
- If you find something similar to your startup idea, try to learn about how it was done and if the product was a success, and more.
If the product wasn’t successful, inquire why this might have happened so that you could avoid the same mistakes. You can also join forums with similar products. These may provide you with information related to your product.
Your research will also help you decide on whether you should create a website or app to promote your product or services, or if it's just enough to invest in the marketing team. Whether you need an outsource vs in-house development team for your further development of the product. You know that you can save time and money by asking questions and getting right support from experts and coaches.
2. Make Sure There Is a Customer’s Demand
One of the reasons why startups fail is because of a lack of demand. There are two questions you should ask yourself when you have an idea:
- Can it solve a real problem?
- How many people face the problem you are trying to solve?
The solution you have should be able to solve a problem that a large number of people face. It is the only way to ensure that your product will be profitable. You also want the demand for your product to be constant, otherwise, you will only be relevant for a short period of time.
There are several tools that you can use to check what is trending. All you have to do is put the keywords, and you will get accurate data in the form of statistics. This shows your demand on the market according to the keywords you use. Examples of tools you can use include:
3. Ask Customers What They Think
Do you want to know how your product would fare on the market? Why not ask your target audience. They will provide actual insights on whether the product would be of any use. For example, if you are thinking of implementing the SaaS development strategy, asking potential customers would be a great way of seeing which aspect you could improve on. Some of the other basics advice include:
- Creating a survey — it can provide you with honest and useful information. One way of asking people what they think is by creating an opinion poll on social media.
- Another great option is Quora.com — for this platform, you can create a series of questions that people can answer.
- If your budget allows, it would be great to use analytic companies that can carry out a survey based specifically on the group of customers you wish to attract.
4. Investigate Your Competitors
If our product is not new on the market, you want to make sure you look into who your competitors are. Why is this important?
For starters, they have been in the business longer. This means they have an advantage over you. But the good news is that you can always learn from your competitors. You can learn how these companies solve problems.
Another advantage of looking at your competitors is that you can look at how they make their products and make necessary modifications. Check the story of the success and how they start earning profit.
After looking at what your competitors do:
- Try to find a better, faster, or cheaper way of delivering the same product to customers. This can give you a competitive advantage even if you are new to a niche.
- Never try to copy the exact same product as another company has. Instead, try to find ways to make your product stand out on the market.
- Think of ways to improve the value of your product to customers.
5. Use Product Hunt
Using Product Hunt is a great way to show the world your idea. This platform was created to help startups to share their products with users. Many users on this platform are interested in knowing the latest products that are available on the market. Users also share these products with others. All you have to do is upload your product. The community on this platform will not only have conversations about your product but share it with others.
The community also votes for their favorite products. This can lift your product to new heights, which only means more customers for you. Another benefit of using Product Hunt is that you get tons of advice on how you could improve your product. This valuable insight could help you improve your idea.
6. Create a Website for Your Product
There is no success without advertising. One way of advertising your product is by creating a website. You can do this even if you don’t have a finished product. Creating a coming soon landing page is a way to encourage interaction with users while working on MVP development. It will help you to analyze how relevant your product will be.
Remember that the only way to pique interest from users is by creating an interesting landing page. Make sure to add all the relevant information about your product.
You can ask users to leave their email address so that you can send additional information about the product (make a research about the CRM strategies). Make sure you start your advertising campaign at this point. Collecting email addresses of users will help you keep in touch with users when you finally launch your product on the market.
7. Monetize Your Idea
A great idea can go to waste if you do not know how to make money from it. So you will need to come up with a strategy to monetize your idea. Think of the market size and how many people you have to reach in order to make profits.
A simple way of doing this is by looking at the competition. Investigate how they make their products and how they are able to reach a lot of users.
There are several strategies you could use. These include:
- Advertising through Google Ads;
- Monetizing your product through a one-time in-app purchase;
- Asking users to use subscriptions;
- Using referral programs.
The method you use will depend on the size of your revenue. Incorporating gamification and finding ways to attract more users will be useful. You can accomplish this by giving your current users rewards when they share your products with others.
Final Thoughts
Testing whether your startup idea will be profitable allows you to avoid potential losses. The first thing to do when you want to validate your startup idea is to make a detailed search. Research about similar products, the market size, and your target audience. It also helps if you can look at what competitors are doing. That way you can try to avoid mistakes.
You can also learn how to create unique and efficient products. Also, try to find out what users think of your product through surveys. This will help you create a product that users would want to interact with. Using Product Hunt, trying different tools and advertising your product early on can help you gain a large number of users. Creating a monetization strategy will help you to make profits when you finally launch your product.
When starting your project, you can always contact the StarNavi professionals to easily navigate through all the processes. It is time to start your own business!
