MONEY & BUSINESS ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Have an idea for your dream start-up?
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Validate your ideas before you move to execution
id you know that 85 per cent of start-ups fail in their first six months due to inadequate idea validation? Propelled by the excitement of starting a new business founders move right from idea to execution, and rush into website development, logo and design, technology set-up, etc. What needs to happen is a very detailed and measurable validation process. Here are a few ways I have validated my ideas before turning them into successful and profitable companies.
and accelerators. Using websites like the beta kit, angel.co or producthunt.com, you can research competitors that are also startups but may be ahead of you in the market. I also routinely check start-up listings from local and global incubators and accelerators for competitors. These resources will help to ensure you know your competition, their service offering, company size and other details.
3. Act “as if”. Pretend your business is already up and running and start to pitch your potential 1. Google Trends & Keywords. customers on your service. Will This free tool can help you look for they buy? Can they validate your data on potential customers. Who assumptions? Is your product or is already looking for your solution? service priced for the market? How often are they searching for Acting as if you are already in the answers? Looking at trends and market is a great way to get close keywords also helps with future to your customers and fill up your sales funnel before launching. I website and SEO plans. advise start-ups to have at least 100 2. Start-up sites, incubators prospects ready to buy before going
to market. One mistake I see too often is validation with friends and family. This is the riskiest method! Your friends and family will either blindly support your ideas or might not know enough to provide correct advice. They are often not your ideal customer, so it will be hard for you to get proper feedback. Don’t rely on this type of validation! Finally, as you validate your idea, focus on the values of your product or service and not features; for example, at my start-up Schoolio where we provide affordable online home education, our values for customers include time-saving, lowering stress and affordable education. We conducted our validation that “if we created feature X, it will then help ease customer values X.”
I have followed the same steps on my own journey to get to our first 100 customers and our first 100k in sales. While building a new start-up is one of the most challenging career choices you can make, it will also be life changing.
Sathish Bala is a serial entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience in the field of digital marketing, operations management and product development.
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