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How to validate your startup idea quickly

amanjain.substack.com

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Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#71

Post by libertine »

codingdave wrote: post #64

Maybe it is because I'm older, but whenever I see this advice to build a fake landing page and see if people sign up... I recall that selling vaporware was reviled in the 90s, but somehow now it is considered a wise business tool. It still feels scammy to me. If you have a market in mind, but don't have people in that market to talk to directly to validate your idea, you are aiming at the wrong market. Otherwise all…

Just clarify your perspective - Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other crowdsourcing platforms are even more scammy, because they go the next step and ask for money, not just an email?

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#72

Post by webmaven »

mpfundstein wrote: post #52
onion2k wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idea/Thesis, Hypothesis, Target, Test and some where later - build. This is a common strategy if you just want to 'do a startup' but it misses the need . Every successful business I can think of started with a founder needing a product to exist. All the startups I've been involved in have been products I wanted to exist because I needed them myself, or I had a close relationship with someone who needed them. Turning…

the whole Lean Startup methodology is snake oil IMO. it is used primarily by consultants to lure big corps into "innovation methodologies".* While its certainly an improvement over status quo, results were mostly meh anyway. you just cant force good ideas the best startups are the ones mentioned by OP. visionary founder who needs that stuff himself. * i was director at a small 7mm/yr consultancy and did precisely tha…

The main point of lean startup isn't to have better ideas, it is to identify and discard bad ones faster, and focus your limited resources on the wheat among the chaff.

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#73

Post by codingdave »

libertine wrote: post #71
codingdave wrote: post #64

Maybe it is because I'm older, but whenever I see this advice to build a fake landing page and see if people sign up... I recall that selling vaporware was reviled in the 90s, but somehow now it is considered a wise business tool. It still feels scammy to me. If you have a market in mind, but don't have people in that market to talk to directly to validate your idea, you are aiming at the wrong market. Otherwise all…

Just clarify your perspective - Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other crowdsourcing platforms are even more scammy, because they go the next step and ask for money, not just an email?

No - those examples are quite clear that the product does not exist, and are seeking funding to build something.

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#74

Post by skmurphy »

AznHisoka wrote: post #19

The last step where you manually do what the product is meant to do really works in 1% of products. Think of all the successful products today: Docusign, Snowflake, Wix, yeah.. not going to happen. It’s 2020. All the low hanging fruit ideas are gone. Any meaningful product idea requires a bit more complexity in implementing it.

New technologies expose new low hanging fruit. The act as what Taleb calls "half-invented" in AntiFragile, a working implementation applied to the wrong problem. The approach of "service first" or concierge or Wizard-of-Oz is still viable and widely used. I agree it does not work for all product types, but it's still a very useful way to defer a lot of implementation expense but still determine product desirability.

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#75

Post by lvturner »

AznHisoka wrote: post #63
lvturner wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know several people who would pay good money to have lengthy and repetitive forms (school permission slips for field trips) filled in 'automatically' and doing this manually should be a cinch! So I'm not sure I agree with your hypothesis.

Really? Paying for someone to fill in forms? If it’s trivial like a field trip, I don’t see anyone paying for that. If it’s important like a legal document, you dont want someone to fill it in for you.

I thought the same, but I saw the size of the form for the field trip and the detail they were asking for (most liability issues to absolve the school of responsibilities) - though, I don't think it would bother me personally enough to want to do it.

And important legal documents... Wouldn't you hire a lawyer or a solicitor to deal with them?

I think even a will - I would probably pay a nominal fee to have one generated for me, on the assumption that I can modify the final version before I personally sign it off on it.

Though the point wasn't really the forms, the point was more that there is a near infinite level of low hanging fruit, it's just not always apparent based on your own situation (and to an extent country!) and set of tasks/frustrations.

Another example that came to mind would be automatically updating all my stuff when I change address (banking details, car registration, driving license etc etc) sure there is a huge trust issue with this but with care, probably not totally insurmountable.

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#76

Post by libertine »

codingdave wrote: post #73
libertine wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just clarify your perspective - Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other crowdsourcing platforms are even more scammy, because they go the next step and ask for money, not just an email?

No - those examples are quite clear that the product does not exist, and are seeking funding to build something.

Ah got it!

So if a landing page states the same, a product is being developed and if people have interest to follow it, drop their email, that's ok right?

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#77

Post by codingdave »

libertine wrote: post #76
codingdave wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No - those examples are quite clear that the product does not exist, and are seeking funding to build something.

Ah got it! So if a landing page states the same, a product is being developed and if people have interest to follow it, drop their email, that's ok right?

Yes, exactly. There is nothing wrong with honest communication, stating that you are thinking about building a product. The problem is when people write pages acting like the product already exists, collecting emails under false pretenses.

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#78

Post by libertine »

codingdave wrote: post #77
libertine wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah got it! So if a landing page states the same, a product is being developed and if people have interest to follow it, drop their email, that's ok right?

Yes, exactly. There is nothing wrong with honest communication, stating that you are thinking about building a product. The problem is when people write pages acting like the product already exists, collecting emails under false pretenses.

Thank you for clarifying, agree with you 100%!

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#79

Post by forgotmysn »

amanjaincorp wrote: post #38
jerzyt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The author made a poll of fellow FB employees. As if that is even remotely representative of the overall market of the 25 to 44 year olds. Just consider the average salary of the polled population vs the general population.

Poll of "fellow FB employees" could be replaced with spending ~$100 on Google Ads and using a certain targeting criteria.

but its not

Re: How to validate your startup idea quickly

#80

Post by forgotmysn »

amanjaincorp wrote: post #14
andrewstuart wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that the author is affiliated with facebook. The point is that for most startups, you validate your ideas from your kitchen table, fighting to get a handful of visitors to visit your site. When facebook launches a product at blasts an infinite firehose of users at the product. So the facebook experience is utterly different to the startup experience and really its kind of absurd to be sitting in facebook adv…

From my experience, the FB brand will get you user entering the door. I agree that's an advantage. But the FB brand does not get your app Product Market Fit. Those people who entered the door because of the ads $ spent, leave and then don't come back.

you're not wrong that the FB brand doesn't guarantee success, but the challenges are completely different.

having experience at FB as a PM is not the only qualifier for starting a start-up. it takes a lot more than that to be successful

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