

Ask HN: What are minimal validations to be done before starting on an idea? - dudeofjude

I am at a hackathon, there are several ideas being proposed. I can contribute as a developer.<p>But I want to make sure, I choose the idea which makes most sense from business POV.<p>So what are the minimal checks that I should do, to validate that the idea is good enough, and I can proceed further.<p>So the question is what minimal Qs should be asked before to validate the idea?<p>Basically it boils down to How the need analysis/ideation stage should be approached, the basic checks.<p>Thanks!
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amongmany
I think a lot of that depends on how much time you have. If you're posting
this FROM a hackathon, where presumably you need to get to work NOW, then some
basic research online is probably the best you can accomplish.

\- Is there a need for it? Are people asking for something like this publicly?
\- If you or someone on your team has a substantial social following, try
kicking a quick question or survey out to the world and see what kind of
responses you can get quickly.

If you have more time, then building a test page (even something as simple as
a launchrock page) and seeing what kind of response you can generate would be
a smart first move in validating. We did something similar to test a couple of
our assumptions for our newly-launched product. We created a sign-up form that
had 2 ways to sign up (allowed us to test one vs. the other) and then followed
that with a one question survey that allowed users to respond as to which
features seemed important to them.

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tzaman
I wrote an article on this a while ago:
[http://blog.codeable.io/2013/01/24/how-to-test-whether-
your-...](http://blog.codeable.io/2013/01/24/how-to-test-whether-your-idea-
has-a-market.html)

It's a short read and my advice still stands.

