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Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#51

Post by e-_pusher »

hugs wrote: post #27

I listed the widget I made on Tindie and then promptly forgot about it for a few months. But when I got some initial purchase orders, I started paying attention again. When I got a repeat order from a customer, it had my complete attention. I called that customer, we talked about exactly what problem it was solving for them, and I learned a lot. However, it still took me another two to three years before I stopped ev…

Inspiring story. What is the barrier of entry for selling gadgets on Tindie? Do you need to get FCC certifications for example?

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#52

Post by goatherders »

gumby wrote: post #40

Set yourself a discriminating target. A friend’s kid asked me for some advice about his startup. It is a SAAS in the elder care space; he’d developed it for his grandmother and had a few friends using it as well. He asked this same question (except it wasn’t a side project). I suggested, “If you can get 50 people whom you don’t already know to use this product for more than a month then you might have a winner.” The…

I'm a big believer that you can make a lot of money starting a business and only ever selling to "friendlies" (your known network)

That said, business value goes up exponentially when it earns the First Dollar, a sale to someone with no existing connection to tue company or anyone in it. Very rarely is First Dollar sale so unique or edge-casey that there aren't dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of prospects that have the same problem and would buy for the same reasons.

TLDr - if you want to make some money start by selling to friendlies. If you want to validate a business that may be able to grow by leaps and bound, focus on the first dollar.

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#53

Post by rhtgrg »

bennythomson wrote: post #46
rhtgrg wrote: post #41

I had a recent side project, a pdf generator of sorts that I made to solve my own problem. I decided to try selling it, even though I was 100% confident that no one would buy it. During the first couple of days I’d also overpriced it, because I didn’t want anyone to buy it before I’d had the chance to fix a couple of bugs. To my surprise (and frankly, shock) people were buying it. I was sure that requests for refunds…

Would you be willing to link to it?

I would, but unfortunately I've already posted about it here from a profile I wish to keep anonymous. (This one is practically my name.)

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#54

Post by Jack000 »

There's a simple way to ensure that you're making something that people want - just solve an existing problem instead of finding a new one.

Search for your problem on google. If the top results are blogspam with ads for monetization, that's a bad sign. Are there existing products in the niche and are they doing well? Is there a lot of search volume for related keywords? Do you have a better or unique understanding of the niche that others lack?

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#55

Post by Glench »

I feel like validation is less of an end-state and more of a process of increasing probability.

Like you might start with one data point ("hey, it's really annoying when I try to do X" or there are a couple posts in online forums from people describing problem X).

Then you get more data (see if more people have that problem, talk to the users on forum posts about their specific needs, find out where potential users hang out and how many people might have this problem).

Then maybe you build something simple to address the needs and see if people are interested / use it / pay for it (landing page or minimum valuable product).

Then you get feedback from the initial users about what they're really needing and iterate lots of times to get it right while figuring out where and how to market/distribute.

Throughout this process there's an increasing sense of confidence that you're on the right track (or not).

But also sometimes you build something just because and it turns out that lots of people like it (Minecraft). But the risk of wasting a lot of time and effort is a lot higher without continuous feedback.

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#57

Post by alin23 »

* Build the minimum needed features to solve the problem for your own use case

* Make it open source

* Give it away for free

It's not the golden rule that will work for everything. But that's what I did with Lunar, my app for controlling monitors (https://lunar.fyi) and it helped enormously with adoption and with seeing if a large enough user base could be created.

A lot of users offered to donate, others told me that I was stupid for not asking money for the app, others constantly asked for features on Github which helped me understand how the product could solve the problem better.

In the end, I prepared a large update with most of the features that were requested and made those features paid while keeping the old version free and open source.

99% of the users applauded this decision and were happy to pay (the other 1% sweared angrily through emails, but what can you do..)

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#58

Post by DarylZero »

gumby wrote: post #40

Set yourself a discriminating target. A friend’s kid asked me for some advice about his startup. It is a SAAS in the elder care space; he’d developed it for his grandmother and had a few friends using it as well. He asked this same question (except it wasn’t a side project). I suggested, “If you can get 50 people whom you don’t already know to use this product for more than a month then you might have a winner.” The…

If you have to completely build the product before you validate that there is demand for it, what is the point of validating the demand

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#59

Post by Madmallard »

alin23 wrote: post #57

* Build the minimum needed features to solve the problem for your own use case * Make it open source * Give it away for free It's not the golden rule that will work for everything. But that's what I did with Lunar, my app for controlling monitors ( https://lunar.fyi ) and it helped enormously with adoption and with seeing if a large enough user base could be created. A lot of users offered to donate, others told me t…

Good idea here

Re: Ask HN: How do you validate demand for your side-project?

#60

Post by pcardoso »

raphaelj wrote: post #36
pcardoso wrote: post #35

I’m doing a surfing class booking platform. I felt a need for something like this as a surfing student: I was booking classes via messaging/phone. A few years go by and I forget about it, but recently I meet the owners of two surfing schools who tell me about the need for a such a booking system. Trying to launch soon. Hope this counts as validation.

Would you be interested in a call to share experience? I'm currently developing a similar platform for music practice space ( https://noisycamp.com ).

Sure! Just sent you an email!
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