Four Steps to Validate Your Startup Idea

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A startup is a business idea with the potential to succeed. They are testing assumptions, and the likeliness of these assumptions going wrong is high. As per research by Fundsquire, approximately 60% of startup founders find that they fail within the first 3 years of launch. This is a scary number, and it makes validating your startup idea even more crucial. 

What is Market Validation? 

Market validation is the process of determining if there’s a need for your product in your targeted market. Validating your business idea will help you predict if people will buy your product or whether your business will be profitable. Market validation gives a deeper understanding of evaluating whether your product meets the target customer’s pain points. This might even end up getting you your first customers.

Here are four steps to determine the market validity of your venture.  

Write down your product concept, goals and assumptions 

The act of writing forces you to stress and ponder over things you might have missed while thinking. These include writing a few key questions that you can go out and test. Other questions might be: What is the value of my product? Who is my target audience and what assumptions do I have of them? What makes my product unique from the ones alreasy in the market?  

Assess market size and share 

The next step would be figuring out the size of your target market and a realistic idea of the share of that market that you can potentially capture. This will help you justify the reasons for launching the product.  

Studying Your Competitors 

The probability of a version of your idea being available on the market is high. So, you can make your idea unique only through execution. This research must be a comprehensive market analysis of the product to get a wholesome picture of not just your competitors but also learning how you can deliver faster. Also, keep an eye on social media – use the reviews for your competitors to your advantage.  

Test Your Product or Service 

After verifying that your product is unique enough to be sold in the market, ensure you’re putting the most useful, intuitive version of it into the world. This can be done through two levels of testing: 

  • Alpha testing – Here, internal employees test a product in staged settings. This is done mainly to eliminate bugs, issues or idiosyncrasies in the product. 
  • Beta testing – In this, the product is tested by a limited group of real, external users who are told to identify the issues. Beta testing for software might be open to the public with a notice informing that the product is unfinished. 

The feedback you get from beta testers can be really valuable. It can help you better leverage and meet customer needs.  

Run two or three of these validation steps simultaneously to analyze and compare results. Validation can help boost your confidence while pitching ideas to investors and about the future of your business.  

A startup is a business idea with the potential to succeed. They are testing assumptions, and the likeliness of these assumptions going wrong is high. As per research by Fundsquire, approximately 60% of startup founders find that they fail within the first 3 years of launch. This is a scary number, and it makes validating your startup idea even more crucial. 

What is Market Validation? 

Market validation is the process of determining if there’s a need for your product in your targeted market. Validating your business idea will help you predict if people will buy your product or whether your business will be profitable. Market validation gives a deeper understanding of evaluating whether your product meets the target customer’s pain points. This might even end up getting you your first customers.

Here are four steps to determine the market validity of your venture.  

Write down your product concept, goals and assumptions 

The act of writing forces you to stress and ponder over things you might have missed while thinking. These include writing a few key questions that you can go out and test. Other questions might be: What is the value of my product? Who is my target audience and what assumptions do I have of them? What makes my product unique from the ones alreasy in the market?  

Assess market size and share 

The next step would be figuring out the size of your target market and a realistic idea of the share of that market that you can potentially capture. This will help you justify the reasons for launching the product.  

Studying Your Competitors 

The probability of a version of your idea being available on the market is high. So, you can make your idea unique only through execution. This research must be a comprehensive market analysis of the product to get a wholesome picture of not just your competitors but also learning how you can deliver faster. Also, keep an eye on social media – use the reviews for your competitors to your advantage.  

Test Your Product or Service 

After verifying that your product is unique enough to be sold in the market, ensure you’re putting the most useful, intuitive version of it into the world. This can be done through two levels of testing: 

  • Alpha testing – Here, internal employees test a product in staged settings. This is done mainly to eliminate bugs, issues or idiosyncrasies in the product. 
  • Beta testing – In this, the product is tested by a limited group of real, external users who are told to identify the issues. Beta testing for software might be open to the public with a notice informing that the product is unfinished. 

The feedback you get from beta testers can be really valuable. It can help you better leverage and meet customer needs.  

Run two or three of these validation steps simultaneously to analyze and compare results. Validation can help boost your confidence while pitching ideas to investors and about the future of your business.  

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