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How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

blog.ladder.io

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Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#21

Post by gricardo99 »

Great writeup. Very informative, speaking as someone new to the realm.

It seems it's only applicable to business models that rely on getting revenue directly from customers (i.e. buying subscriptions or widgets). Do you have any thoughts about how you might test an idea where your service is free, but you get revenue through advertising to your users? It would still be very valuable to get some sense of how useful users would find your site, how often they'd visit, etc..., but you don't really have a strong test (i.e. will they pay?)

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#22

Post by stefanmancevski »

wtvanhest wrote: post #20
2michaeltaylor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, author and one of the co-founders here, michael taylor. Thanks for checking us out and taking the time to comment! We definitely are standing on shoulders of giants here; I sleep with Lean Startup under my pillow. We just saw this blowing up on HN and I'm personally pretty excited because it's the first time I've had anything on here. Didn't even expect it as a marketer, so that's awesome. We've actually just hi…

Off topic, but can you fix that bug that makes your site create a popup when a user highlights text. I have trouble tracking text and use the highlight to read faster. Your site is completely unreadable to me.

Will do!

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#23

Post by [deleted] »

wtvanhest wrote: post #20
2michaeltaylor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, author and one of the co-founders here, michael taylor. Thanks for checking us out and taking the time to comment! We definitely are standing on shoulders of giants here; I sleep with Lean Startup under my pillow. We just saw this blowing up on HN and I'm personally pretty excited because it's the first time I've had anything on here. Didn't even expect it as a marketer, so that's awesome. We've actually just hi…

Off topic, but can you fix that bug that makes your site create a popup when a user highlights text. I have trouble tracking text and use the highlight to read faster. Your site is completely unreadable to me.

[deleted]

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#25

Post by newman314 »

2michaeltaylor wrote: post #16
hodgesrm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for a great write-up. I agree with most of the business tips but one thing you omitted is possible conflicts with your existing job over intellectual property and solicitation of either customers or employees. Most employment agreements include things like assignment of inventions and non-solicitation as standard terms. Conflicts of this kind would be a good reason to quit before you get too deeply into resear…

That's a very valid point. One for the lawyers. Anyone have good advice on this front? Happy to add to post.

IANAL but some basic common sense stuff:

* Do this on your own time. Maintain separation and document as necessary

* Make sure that you did not sign anything as part of your employment agreement that claims ownership over your ideas, thoughts, inventions, data etc. outside of working hours

* Do not use any company resources

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#26

Post by newman314 »

k__ wrote: post #9
stefanmancevski wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally get that. You've already got a great way to identify the meaningful problems - it doesn't come out of thin air, but out of your experience working with people, clients, etc... That's the point of Step 1: Wanna know what problems a client is facing? Ask. If you don't ask, you'll never know what solution to build. The quitting of the job can come later :)

I'm already a freelancer, so I don't need to quit much, haha. Point is, the people I work for see me as a tool. They pay me money for my time to solve the problems they identified themselves.

If you run into the same problems over and over again and do not have a readily available tool to address it = OPPORTUNITY

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#27

Post by inputcoffee »

Two quick points:

1. I like the blog post. It may sound similar to the methodology in Lean startup, Y Combinator, and a bunch of other stuff but so what. It is clearly written and specific.

2. I have no idea what ladder.io does! I looked at the web page, and it is very slick, but I still can't figure out what you do.

Quite a difference.

You have a "real time tactic database". Is that the same as a listicle on the top 5 areas to spend marketing $?

You offer continuous testing. Is that Google Analytics?

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#28

Post by morgante »

lilcarlyung wrote: post #5

Is quitting your job for your own startup idea, when working in tech, really that big of a deal? Especially if you are a software engineer? You'll probably end up doing the same thing as on a corporate job but for yourself while learning a lot of new things about building software (marketing, sales, design, etc.) and about yourself (grit, character, etc.). You are still gaining experience. If shit hits the fan, with…

> You'll probably end up doing the same thing as on a corporate job

Except the part where you get a paycheck.

The opportunity cost of quitting your job is thousands of dollars a week. That's a big decision to make.

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#29

Post by pragmatic »

I'd love to know where to find these people to interview. Where do I go, the supermarket, the park?

Also I don't think my network is big enough to hit up a significant number for a new software idea aimed at a specific niche (ex used cars sales).

Those are the pieces I've never been able to put together in all my time with the Lean Startup methodology.

Re: How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job

#30

Post by andrewfromx »

you could re-title "How to make sure you talk yourself out of taking a risk and keeping your job" isn't the limitus test from zuckerberg you should have this burning desire to change the world in this particular way, and the burn should be so intense that you wouldn't even consider for 1 second keeping your job.
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