Ask HN: What are some creative ways to validated an idea before implementing it? - alfonsodev
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gesman
Sell it before building it.

If there are no buyers - validation done.

If there are buyers - refund money, apologize for delay, send X% OFF coupon
and start building it.

Maybe a bit controversial but works with many types of products or services.

(About 15 yrs ago I had an idea to combine all esoteric spiritual ideas that
belongs to certain fragmented discipline into one place and sell it as eBook.
That exactly what i did and was very surprised to give 4 refunds within short
period of time, before putting it "off market")

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akudha
A slight variation of it is - sell it before building, but let the users know
it isn't ready it. Give them a deep discount (50% or more) for their trust.
The idea is to set a release date, and if you don't hit it, refund the money.

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muzani
Make website. Advertise website on Google or Facebook or whatever. Have pretty
screenshots about what the idea is. When people click the sign up button or
try to enter their credit card info, it crashes.

Another alternative: put up flyers. When someone calls, say that the service
is currently fully occupied. (works great for car rentals, cleaning services,
etc)

After validating, you might want to shut down the advertising.

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alfonsodev
thanks, that reminds me some services that have a queue for early adopters
where can sign in to be in the queue waiting to enter beta program. I guess I
could implement that queue, put 100 as initial number, and let people join the
queue, when I'm ready for beta just need to notify them that it is their turn.

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cupofjoakim
Depends on the idea itself. If it's a business idea, talk to people in your
imagined target group and validate that the need is real, and that the way you
want to solve it isn't wrong in an immediate sense.

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owens99
My top 2: 1\. Interview customers to discover the right segment and if they
care enough about the problem you want to solve. 2\. Use a landing page to
validate the solution and marketing channels before you build it.

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tehlike
Ask them to pay for a crappy version of the product.

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muzani
This. The best customers are the ones who have already hacked their own crappy
product, probably in a spreadsheet or some chat group. As long as yours is
less crappy, there's a market for it.

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alfonsodev
that makes me very optimistic, I've located many related WhatsApp groups and
telegram, the only thing that concerns me is how to deal with copyright,
people seem not to have any problem infringing copyright on WhatsApp and
telegram sharing files.

