

How to test the viability of your online business idea - aymeric
http://aymeric.gaurat.net/index.php/2010/how-to-test-the-viability-of-your-online-business-idea/

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fluxcapacitor
I tried exactly the same approach (based on the Lean Startup blog) but I got
burned: Google Adwords banned me for life. Seriously! I tried to create
another (unrelated) campaign and created a new user for that, and they still
blocked me (I guess they are able to track my name through my credit card).

Anyhow, to this date I don't know why (they never explained, and they were
quite rude and abrupt on the email). I believe it was because they found out
that I didn't actually have a real product. I analyzed the access logs and I
believe they actually verify the sites by hand before approving the ad.

In summary, be careful when you use Adwords without a real product.

~~~
arethuza
Did you actually say on your site that you didn't have a product in an obvious
way?

I was just about to do this for a product I've just started working on and I'd
planned to be quite honest about the status and simply collect emails so I
could keep people notified.

~~~
fluxcapacitor
I made it clear that the product was under development and a form to collect
emails, after the user clicked on the "Sign-Up" button.

I think Google's approach is "Why is this guy paying money to promote a
software that is still under development? He must be a spammer!". Of course
I'm just guessing that: Like I said before, they refused to give me an actual
explanation of why they banned me.

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NyxWulf
The problem with this approach is that it doesn't necessarily tell you
anything about the market for your product. It only tells you whether or not
you understand how to market or sell the product effectively over the web.
Your first attempt at putting out a sales page is likely to be abysmal, and
through continuous refinement you will get to a point where you can
effectively convert people.

I think the approach presented in the four steps to the epiphany is superior.
Get out of the office and go talk to people who your solution will help. Find
out what they need. Find out what things would make them buy and what things
they don't care about. Talk to about 20 of them, and you'll get a pretty good
idea what they are looking for.

Seriously, instead of wasting your money on a poorly optimized ad campaign
(that may even get you banned for life from adwords - see comment by
fluxcapacitor) take that money and go buy "the four steps to the epiphany" on
amazon, and then read it! If you want an even quicker and simpler intro, get
the ebook "Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development", it is based on Steve
Blank's work and it is well worth it: <http://www.custdev.com/>.

Overall those books will pay you back much more thoroughly than a hacked out
adwords campaign ever will.

Starting a business is about understanding a real business need, finding out
who has that need, figuring out how you get in front of them, what will they
pay for your solution, and then how to repeat that process on a regular basis.
Oh, and it is almost certainly going to take more than four hours a week to do
that.

~~~
paraschopra
The issue is that some people are just shy or your target market may actually
be very busy. This method catches the visitors in their actual
research/purchase stage. So, I find the method as an interesting alternative.

Of course, nothing like talking to 20 individuals constituting your target
market. Provided, you _can_ find them and they have time for you.

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aymeric
Context:

I am preparing some presentation for an Ignite event and I asked my future
audience which topic they would like me to cover.

I decided to blog about the topics that I won't be presenting at the Ignite
event.

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ahoyhere
This is an old trick.

It works much better to test the viability on people in your social circle
than random strangers on the internet. Cheaper, too.

If you are trying to sell to people entirely outside your social circle, the
probability is that you don't know enough about the field to penetrate it -
not without a lot of extra effort (compared to something you know about). It
also drastically increases the likelihood that your brilliant ideas are moot
or unwanted. Yes, you could find that out this way, but you might not - you
might not even know what search terms to use, or the ads for them might be
very expensive.

If you don't have a social circle, ditto.

FTR, I pre-launched Freckle exclusively to our blog readers/twitter followers
and we got 900 email addresses, which led to $1300 the first month post-30 day
trials, never spending a penny or chasing after random strangers on the
internet. Doing the same again for Charm (<http://charmde.sk>).

I'll be writing about this specifically in the next week over on my biz blog,
btw: <http://unicornfree.com>

~~~
aymeric
What is the address of the blog that drove the initial traffic for Freckle?

