

How not to test your startup idea; how to test your startup idea. - wmeredith
http://wademeredith.com/2010/12/how-not-to-test-your-startup-idea-how-to-test-your-startup-idea/

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sushrutbidwai
I dont think starbucks advice is that terrible. Even though mechanicle turk
does seem like a good alternative, I would much rather go to a coffee shop or
a bar where I know startup savvy people hang out and discuss it in person. But
one of the best advice I ever received is - Start a blog and gain some
traction for it before you launch your MVP. Discuss customer stories and
problems you are looking to solve. Ask people opinion about your solution,
discuss/debate in public. Use these discussion to keep on refining your
direction and feature set. As a positive side effect you might end up creating
a passionate community around your solution before launching and have list of
people interested in paying you money beforehand.

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alexyim
Right. I feel that this article doesn't give strong arguments as to why the
advice is terrible in the first place.

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philwelch
Lying to people and manipulating their sympathy to validate a business idea is
wrong. I imagine the OP didn't imagine this was something that had to be
pointed out to people--even if you don't agree with that viewpoint it's not
exactly a difficult one to imagine, and it's better to state as a premise that
it's a bad idea rather than bog down a blog post--which seemed more focused on
discussing alternative methods--into a tedious moral argument that won't
convince anyone.

~~~
swombat
You lie to people every day just to function normally in society. You must be
a terrible sinner. Boo hoo.

~~~
richcollins
While were at it let's throw in a good dose of violence, because that can help
us get what we want as well.

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dshankar
Breaking it down -

 _"If you spend your time building something instead of conning in coffee
shops, you can put a minimum viable product in front of someone"_

FALSE. I used to say that, until I think it was Harj who corrected me. His
reasoning (paraphrased) was along the lines of "you'll spend 3-5 years if it's
a great idea, wasting a few days/weeks pausing & checking your assumptions is
insignificant time in the long run. It makes sense to spend few minutes/days
making sure I don't waste weeks, months or even years.

 _Option A: Mechanical Turk_

MAYBE. It depends on your audience. If you are InDinero building a service for
small businesses, it does not make sense to ask MTurk to vet your feature set.
They're not your target audience.

 _Option C: Get people to pay/commit to it_

MAYBE. I bet I could ask 30 of my closest friends to commit simply because
psychologically, people want to help. People will feel warm and fuzzy by
giving you a few bucks to help you build your idea. Ask a business to commit
$1,000+ - that's real validation.

~~~
wmeredith
Breaking down why you're wrong about why I'm wrong :-)

A) 3 to 5 years to MVP? You're doing it wrong.

B) No solution is perfect for every situation, I'll concede that. It doesn't
make me wrong. In fact it assures that what I said will be right, at least
some of the time. I'm being snarky, but the point is, of course MTurk isn't
going to work for every application. Use some judgment. Maybe the coffee shop
thing would work better for you, I just think other alternatives are more
worthy of investigation.

C) Once again, you're doing it wrong. You got it there at the end though. Ask
_businesses or real potential customers_ to commit, not you're closest
friends. In what scenario would _that_ route work?

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dshankar
A. MVP usually takes at least a month if not more. Do you want to waste a full
month of your life? That could be avoided by 30 minutes of talking to future
customers.

B. & C. - "Maybe" - not wrong, just maybe. There needs to be emphasis on "real
potential customers." I've made the mistake of thinking I'm doing something
great because friends (who might buy it) liked the idea. Just trying to point
out the need for honest feedback.

(Sorry if I came off as snarky ;) apologies)

~~~
wmeredith
No worries, publishing on the Internet for years has given me quite a thick
skin. I'm also always willing tondo use counterpoints. It's the best way to
refine an argument, or startup idea for that matter.

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JoeAltmaier
See, now that he brings it up, I have the same issue about the Google Adwords
campaign that most folks have with lying about your brother: you don't really
have a product page or anything to sell, but your Google ad implies you do.
You're lying to people to see if you can trick them into clicking on your ad,
in the name of statistics. If I clicked on such an ad, I would be mildly
pissed.

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wushupork
I feel like these ideas could not have been used to test a Facebook. Asking
people if they want to use a new social network without actually seeing and
touching it would not have been insightful. You could describe to the wall but
because the concept was so new I feel like most people including myself would
not necessarily see the value of it right away. Asking people to commit to pay
for it is even more of a stretch.

It doesn't apply to all situations.

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macco
Showing people a minimum viable product is not feasable in most situations.
You should try to validate your innovation idea earlier in your development
process. Talking to potential customers is still best - I think.

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Swizec
> Option C. Ask people to commit to pay for it:

This is probably the best thing you can do, if you are ballsy enough to do it.
Personally I always feel a bit bad/like a con artist/ about going to people
and saying "Hey, I totally have this great thing and I will likely be pretty
much able to hopefully give it to you in maybe a few months, perhaps a year or
so, if you would just buy it right now!" ... that's not a good way to conduct
business. (imho)

Now, what _does_ work for this sort of thing (and my conscience) is
Kickstarter (and others like it). If you can get a lot of money donated from
people who know what they're getting into, then you're onto something.

~~~
gintas
You don't have to get people to buy hot air. What the author has in mind is
probably either a) "Assume that this product is fully functional. Will you pay
for it $X?" or b) "I am planning to build this product. Would you promise to
pay me $X when I deliver this product?"

