How to validate your startup’s idea and stop delusional thinking kicking in.
You grab a copy of the Mom Test, get a few friends to sign up, job done, right?
“Yeah, we’ve got product market fit. Well, we’re on our way. We’ve got a load of paying customers. Well, a handful. Well, they’re actually my friends. Well, they’re not really paying either. But there are so many ways we can sell this product, so many potential industries…
You in?”
*insert Homer Simpson retreating into the bush emoji*
The exchange above was not made up nor created by ChatGPT. It has happened to me three or four times when talking to startup founders about their growth plans.
I do empathise, honestly. Building a startup - sometimes on your own at the beginning - can be a super lonely experience. It can play with your confidence, all of a sudden you’re expected to make decisions about development, about financing, about marketing. A lot of which is most probably very different to your day job.
But there’s no excuse to cut corners when it comes to the ground work. The foundations of which you’re building your business and you’ll potentially share to attract investors or staff to join you. (Read here if you’re looking at the next step of validating market demand).
How do you know you still have work to do when validating your idea?
(…Apart from the lack of revenue bit)
People say they love your idea but they don’t pay for it
People regularly misinterpret what you do and describe it using “safe” terms
All your money - and it’s not like there’s loads of it - goes on developing features
You’ve got some customers but you don’t know what’s working and why
Investors roll their eyes when you tell them your potential market is everyone.
Sound familiar?
It’s not good enough *just* knowing the market you’re focusing on and maybe the job titles. This approach sucks. It sucks because it doesn’t allow for nuance in language, it treats everyone like a homogenous mess. It assumes everyone buys / hires products for the same reason.
“We sell to everyone!”
Can you imagine the impact of employing a “strategy” like this? Wasted time, wasted resources. Disillusioned teams. Customer acquisition goes through the roof. Lukewarm, meh results.
Can you imagine what the world would look like if a product was “sold to everyone”? Can you imagine the progress someone would make?
To me, I conjure up this apocalyptic wasteland, zombies… an episode of the Last of Us. (Or, my personal hell, something with the Kardashians in).
I don’t want that for you.
I want you to feel confident about the steps you need to consider to get closer to validation. If reading isn’t for you, check out go-to-market strategy for startups. Or, learn how the team at MiFuture validated their startup’s audience.
Beginner’s steps to help validate the problem you think your startup is solving.
Side note, I have created The Startup Founder’s Guide to Validating An Idea if you want the full breakdown, frameworks and ideas for questions.
1. Get the terminology right.
Validating a problem and validating your product are two different things. You need both; a problem severe enough that people are willing to pay, and a product that helps them to achieve their goal… that you can build a sustainable business around.
2. Draw up what you know about the audience. And then dig more.
I recommend starting with and answering these questions:
Who is your market (broad group of people who operate in your product space)
What is your beachhead? That part of the market that you know will *really* get it.
Who is your customer (the group likely to buy the product)
What are they currently using to solve this problem?
Who out of this group has:
High urgency
Low ability to solve it themselves?
If you’re nerdy about this stuff, like me, check out Your competitors aren’t who you think they are.
2. Create a problem hypothesis.
This is where we start the process of understanding whether or not the problem you perceive is shared by others... others who are willing to pay to solve it. The origin of your problem idea can come from multiple places; perhaps you’ve experienced it yourself and you want to see if others do too. Maybe you’ve got access to a community and you’re trying to design something that makes their life a little easier.
Whatever the origin, you’ll need a problem statement that succinctly summarises what you’re looking to achieve to see if it resonates with people.
When constructing your problem hypothesis, think about:
What’s the challenge or problem with current solutions available to your ideal audience?
Why aren’t there any "good" solutions?
Why do people have to make do with bodged products?
Who is involved? Is it a b2b or b2c model? Or perhaps, a b2b2c?
3. Create your problem statement for use in interviews.
Some people like to start by using this framework:
We believe that ___________________________ (if we create a product around X), and if we do _______________________________ (short-term benefit), ______________________________ (long term benefit) will happen.
Here’s one I used with a recent startup:
We believe that if we create careers advice on the topics that matter to young people in a format they’ll engage with, they’ll feel more confident to take part at work, and ultimately, productivity rates will increase at work.
Try Get out and Start Talking to Customers for a little more context.
4. Agree what a validated problem hypothesis looks like.
After you’ve got a feel for the above and you’ve interviewed and surveyed a range of people, or you’ve got a consultant in to help you with customer development, you’ll start to see patterns. Patterns will help you to shape your findings and understand if there’s a potential problem and business model worth pursuing.
But here’s what a validated problem hypothesis looks like.
The potential customer:
has confirmed that there is a problem or pain point believes that the problem can and should be solved
has actively invested effort, time, and money, learning to try and solve
doesn’t have circumstances that prevent them from trying to fix it.
Bonus learnings you should think about:
Your problem hypothesis should change as you learn more about your potential customers.
This is totally normal and when you’re however many months into this, you’ll look back at your first statement and laugh. Or be proud of what you’ve done.
Not all problems are equal.
If you think your product is a vitamin (i.e. a nice to have) rather than a painkiller (i.e. a must-have) that doesn’t necessarily mean you should stop pursuing it. Rather, you’ll just need to understand that not all problems are equal, and down the line, will require different marketing strategies.
Grab the guide that helps you with this process and more.
Download The Startup Founder’s Guide to Validating an Idea.
This is a new guide I’ve released to help startups speed up their learnings, feel confident when approaching this, and make investors feel a little more easy when considering your model.
If you’re interested it includes areas such as:
Articulating your idea:
- Business, problem and product hypothesis creation
Unlocking WHY someone would buy:
- Message market fit
- The interview and survey process
- Jobs to be done
Releasing it to the wild:
- Types of MVP
- What does validated look like?
