
Ask HN: Is there an almost good way to pre-validate an idea myself? - gls2ro
I am interested to find out ways&#x2F;heuristics&#x2F;questions on how to pre-validate my own ideas before going with them to talk with possible customers or partners.<p>In general I have a lot of ideas and I am looking for a way to decide which one is the one who I should invest time to validate it with potential customers.<p>I found some good questions to ask about my idea in term of market size, is it a need or a possibility, what kind of customers will there be ...
But I am looking for more ideas or better questions that can guide me and make this process less subjective.<p>I am curious if someone recommends a way to do this in a way that is as efficient as possible.
Probably I am looking to some kind of skeptical analysis combined with data.
======
lettergram
You can't really "validate" an idea prior to launching something.

You can however view market size, here are the two ways I would do it:

1\. Check out Facebook ad's and find your target person, Facebook will
estimate how many people are in that target group.

2\. Check out subreddits in the various areas you are looking to build a
product for.

That being said, look at PROBLEMs, and try not to form ideas. Fixing a problem
is much easier and will get people excited, building a product isn't really
about your ideas - it's about everyone else.

Subjectively, here are two examples.

1\. I built a solution to a problem a friend was having. They couldn't get in
to see a course advisor when registering for classes, so I wrote one for them:
[https://easy-a.net/](https://easy-a.net/) It became super popular, without me
realizing it. I started getting "thank you's" in the middle of class, and I
was like "for what?" That's how powerful fixing a problem is.

2\. The other example, is a problem I wanted to fix for myself. I wanted to
make money so I built my own financial advisor (for stocks, bitcoins, etc.).
We recently launched it, and it's only had a hundred or so email
registrations: [https://projectpiglet.com/](https://projectpiglet.com/)

The difference being, I'm only building my idea for myself.

When building for other people, you have to put yourself in their shoes. That
forces you to relay information better, fix their problems, and make them
happy. That's how you validate.

I recommend tossing up a signup page, unattached to your name, with a brief
description of what you want to do. Just see how many people sign up! I
recognize that's talking with potential customers, but a signup page takes a
day, and actually forces you to address issues.

I actually love using forms, and posting on subreddits asking for people to
list their problems.

~~~
gls2ro
The main reason behind my question was that I have a form of Ideas Journal
where I write either problems I see or possibilities of what can be created.

From time to time I read it and try to figure out if there is something truly
valuable to pursue.

For sure setting up a signup page could be one way of doing that. And now that
I re-read your comment I am thinking that I could make a script to
automatically generate these kind of pages for my ideas.

This might be a good way to automatically test most of them.

I also take great inspiration from your examples.

------
reckoner2
This might not be a useful answer for you, but are you sure any of that is
necessary? You can spend months pre-validating an idea and never get anywhere.

Go talk to potential customers now. Find people who are willing to pay for
what your are going to build. Once you know they exist, then you can start
worrying about market size and the rest. At this point having real life people
who want to pay you is infinitely more valuable than any hypothetical data and
analysis.

~~~
gls2ro
Yes, I totally agree that the best investment of my time would be to talk with
customers.

But maybe I am doing the process wrong. I read a lot about how to start by
choosing a group and discovering their ideas.

Currently I have some kind of Idea Journal (actually a .md file in a cloud)
where I write ideas, needs, problems, possibilities. It might not be the best
way to do this.

I was looking for an easy way (from sitting on my desk) to filter them.
Initially I get enthusiastic about all of them remembering the context where I
wrote them and I think I am a type of person optimistic so I catch myself
finding a lot of reasons why most of them are good.

So I read some books about startups, ideas, lean, ... and I got some questions
to ask myself about them. This made the filtering process better.

The reason I asked this question was that I wanted to know also more practical
examples of what do you - HN - do before taking the first actions (first
investments of your time) in the project you want to build.

------
tmaly
There are two great books that helped me do this.

First, the Mom Test, it is very short, and it talks about what types of
questions to ask and what types to avoid. The main focus is avoiding the
introduction of bias. You want good data you can work with.

Second book is Running Lean. It has a great script that you can adapt to the
industry you are targeting. It also gives pointers on conducting the
interview.

Together, these two short books will get you started.

~~~
gls2ro
Didn't read them yet. Thank you for suggestions. Can you please confirm that
the second book is this one "Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That
Works" \- by Ash Maurya?

~~~
tmaly
yes, that is the book by Ash Maurya.

------
JSeymourATL
Does your Target Buyer attend any conferences/trade shows/meet-ups? If you can
get to any of those -- the face-to-face interaction is invaluable.

~~~
gls2ro
I think most of them are attending conferences/meetups.

Like I wrote above, currently I started with ideas and trying to see (from my
desk) if there is a value in them before investing time.

Maybe it is not the right process and I should pick one idea and directly go
and talk with customers. Probably I believe (or I am attached) too much on the
things I wrote in my idea journal and I should find a way to look at them from
different perspectives.

~~~
JSeymourATL
From your desk-- assuming you can identify attendees of the appropriate
conferences/meetups (Twitter is good for this)... cold email/call call them is
the next best thing. Ultimately however, you have to get out of your room.

