From a technical perspective, how do you validate a new product/app idea? What tools/frameworks/etc. do you use to collect enough information to know if you should invest more time and money?
Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#2I would like to know too.
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#3one thing i’ve heard people doing is making a quick splash page and using it to measure possible attention. You can collect emails with it or simply just monitor traffic.
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#4Build a simple functional prototype (also known as Minimum viable product) and give it away free.
This will start a whole series of next level tasks and some of them you may not even be aware of with just an idea.
Track usage and interest in your prototype and decide whether it is worth building the full product.
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#51. Landing page that shows mockups of your product and how it benefits the audience - capture emails "get notified of launch!"
You can drive traffic to the landing page by sharing it in relevant communities and by setting up some highly targeted ads.
2. Instead of programming your core feature right away, even as a MVP, if possible, do manual non-scaleable work to offer it instead. This lets you test if people want it, without spending much dev time or money.
Example: "Leading into the summer of 2009, the team developed the first incarnation of FanDuel in a Google Docs spreadsheet, says cofounder and chief product officer Tom Griffiths, who recalls recruiting test players on Craigslist and accepting their entry fees via PayPal"
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#6I worked on a Hackathon project that received an award from the sponsor and seemed like a good idea. My team of 4 was stoked and ready to continue building the service but one more experienced dev was hesitant.
He advocated putting up a beta sign up page with some mock images; to wait and see if we were going to get traction.
Sure enough, he was right. We got tweeted by Etsy and expected a rush of sign ups- we only got 1. It was from a guy I met at the airport whom I told about the project.
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#71. Landing page that shows mockups of your product and how it benefits the audience - capture emails "get notified of launch!" You can drive traffic to the landing page by sharing it in relevant communities and by setting up some highly targeted ads. 2. Instead of programming your core feature right away, even as a MVP, if possible, do manual non-scaleable work to offer it instead. This lets you test if people want i…
I've heard technique 2 described as a "Wizard of Oz" experience.
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#8One great way is to focus on personal problems (instead of "ideas"). Solve it in a very hacky way for yourself and then share it with people, see if it helps others. If it doesn't, no big deal, you've solved an annoying problem for yourself without investing too much time. If others like it, then you can see if you want to take it to the next level. Most first-time founders started that way.
Interesting essay on this subject: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#9I would like to know also. I have had one moderately successful product and I am not even sure why it was when others were not. I did put the most amount of effort into it. But since it was a somewhat early app I made out well in the app gold rush period. I have found that "If you build it, they won't come". One thing I have found in the software world is that great amounts of effort is put into features and areas which few people should care about when other great needs are unmet. Why did Apple spend so much time with a feces emoji when we don't have a machine based closed caption service for the hearing impaired yet?
What I would like to see is a website where the public itself develops a product or refines an idea so that a market is already in place before engineering begins. I would love to see someone do this with the Linux desktop. There are zillions of Linux desktops and great effort is put in areas where users wonder "what were they thinking?? We were happy with the way it was!! Why did you change it? Why didn't you put in this feature we all miss from Windows 7 or Mac OS?".
Re: Ask HN: How do you quickly test out new product/app ideas?
#10Build a simple functional prototype (also known as Minimum viable product) and give it away free. This will start a whole series of next level tasks and some of them you may not even be aware of with just an idea. Track usage and interest in your prototype and decide whether it is worth building the full product.
"Give it away free" is one thing that most of the times gives false results.