
Ask HN: What's the best way to guage interest in a product idea? - adtac
I have an idea for a SaaS startup that could potentially make money. I&#x27;m just wondering, what&#x27;s the best way to guage if companies are actually interested in this product without giving away the idea to publicly?<p>The idea is not entirely new - there are a few players, but no one really big. And I kind of have a USP with this idea.<p>So I could potentially ask publicly, but is it worth the risk?
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happycodework
There's lots of tests you can do. You can do each one multiple times And mix
and match tests too.

Ebay. Put product on ebay and see if you get orders, cancel before auction
ends, or after and apologise for being out of stock

Craigslist same thing

Fake sales site - write a "long copy" single page sales site and just have
your buy now button email you a sale notice and display 'sorry not available
yet'

Landing page/preorder site- super simple landing page with buy now btn,
optionally fulfill the orders for sales

(or just collect emails for a Guage interest ) - Landing page email

google ads - buy 50 or so dollars of Google ads and see if you get clicks

Email campaign - sample email marketing ... same as goog ads

Bar test - agree to buy someone a beer in the bar if they try your app and
give you feedback on it. Repeat 3-4x

Kickstarter- try for funding or preorders

Etsy/Shopify store and cancel orders ( etsy shopify has more natural traffic,
so your not testing your marketing/adwords skills)

Most can be done for 25 bucks, in 30min. Do it again after you have an mvp if
you want. also google idea validation

