

Ask HN: How do you validate your ideas? - ShinyCyril

It seems like the easiest way is to get a landing page or similar that says &#x27;Here&#x27;s my product, here&#x27;s what it does&#x27; and gather feedback from people (and some points of contact) which you take on board and use to shape the development of your product.<p>How is this done in practice though? I was working on a project with a friend a while back and we posted a landing page with a mailing list here. The feedback it got was along the lines of &quot;This is just a landing page, come back when you have a product&quot;.<p>How can you get useful feedback and validation on ideas without spamming links to meaningless landing pages everywhere?<p>I look forward to hearing your views.
======
bjones53
Validation is often oversimplified.

Driving traffic to a landing page validate's that you're good at marketing;
signups validate interest from consumers; feedback provides insight for
product development. However, none of these actions validate your idea.

Product demo videos provide people the context they require to properly assess
the value of your idea. The best demo videos quickly describe the value of the
product and then provide a use case which creates context for the audience.
Finally, they end with a QUICK walk-through.

Drew Houston launched Dropbox with a product demo
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE).
Try to think of validation as an ongoing process and product demos as the next
step.

~~~
mnort9
"Validation is often oversimplified."

100% agree. It's very difficult to get "honest" feedback without getting a
product in the hands of users.

------
britknight
Why are you separating the idea from the execution? Ideas are just multipliers
for execution[1]. You can have the best idea in the world but if your
execution is terrible no one will use it. Conversely, a lot of effort focused
on an average or even so-so idea can result in a great product.

If you're unsure whether to start building something, the answer is usually to
start building anyway. You can refine your idea as you work, and once you have
a basic prototype you can start asking people what they think of your idea
_and_ of your execution.

Prototypes are cheap, and as soon as you have one you can start validating
what really matters: your product.

[1] [https://sivers.org/multiply](https://sivers.org/multiply)

------
anthony_franco
First you'll want to build up an email list of interested customers. That'll
be your launch list.

In the mean time, you'll want to contact the list to see if there's anyone who
has a burning desire for the product right now. These are your Early
Evangelists that will guide your product development. Their need for the
solution is so great that they're willing to work with you even from the
'napkin idea' phase.

If you're unable to find a handful of these Early Evangelists then either a)
you don't have a problem with a big enough pain point or b) you're bad at
reaching your target market. In either case you'll want to fix that.

------
Someone1234
A/B tests. Have a single site, two pages, and something like Google Analytics.
See how many people visit the site and if they spend more time on A or B. Then
modify the worse of the two and re-test.

At some point you have to just take a risk and develop a product. All you can
really do is see if there is ANY interest at all, and also discuss it with
people who might be consumers of the product to see what they think (but take
it with a pinch of salt, focus groups are notoriously fickle).

------
recalibrator
Can you really validate a product without taking risk? By the time you think
through, develop, pitch and launch an MVP, much of the hard work is done.

