Introduction
Intro
As a Founder, chances are you’ve experienced the “eureka” moment -- that feeling of capturing lightning in a bottle when you suddenly strike upon an idea that has you running to tell your friends, family members, and baffled strangers you encounter on the street.
Nine times out of ten, the “eureka” moment is immediately followed by an overwhelming urge to jump straight into the building process because you know in your heart of hearts how incredibly awesome your idea is, and you’re hellbent on getting it into the wild as fast as humanly possible so everyone else can see how awesome it is, too.
Then, before you know it, you find yourself months later, having spent many a sleepless night and tens of thousands of dollars building a product that, come to find out, nobody really wants.
Now what?
Putting the Horse BEFORE The Cart
For all too many Founders, their idea ultimately winds up dying on the vine simply because they didn’t take the time to pause, take a step back, and look at the key indicators that tell them whether or not that specific version of their idea is worth doing, or if any version of their idea is worth doing for that matter. It’s the startup equivalent of putting the cart before the horse. We’re going to do it the other way around.
That’s where idea validation comes in.
Overview
Much like how NASA devotes tons of cycles to mapping out every possibly trajectory, gravity field, and asteroid movement before launching an unmanned vehicle into orbit, we’re going to show you how to arm yourself with the right information, evidence, and feedback you need to walk away with the best possible understanding of how to proceed (or not proceed) with your idea.
But unlike rocket science, we’re going to break this up into super digestible steps that you can tackle one at a time and actually get done:
PHASE 1
Create a research plan
Creating a diligent research plan will help you identify and understand the problem you’re tackling and any solutions that may already exist in your market.
PHASE 2
Get expert validation
Connecting with experienced, relevant leaders in your industry will help bring clarity and insight into the feasibility of your project. After all, these are the folks who have been there and done it before.
PHASE 3
Engage in customer discovery
Directly engaging in constructive conversations with your ideal customers will help you better comprehend how your solution fits into your market and prove or disprove any assumptions you have about your customers.
PHASE 4
Craft your elevator pitch
We’ll cover the best ways to boil down the biggest value propositions of your idea and show you how to mold them into a succinct elevator pitch that covers all the critical pieces of information potential investors look for.
The Goal
Proper idea validation is all about putting in the necessary legwork at the beginning to ultimately save you a ton of time, effort, and money in the long run. Once you’ve crossed the finish line, you’ll have checked off a few important goals along the way.
Understand who’s operating in your market and how to properly evaluate them.
Refine your idea based on feedback from industry experts and customers.
Articulate your idea in a way that sparks interest.
Let’s do this!