
Ask HN: What is your process for validating startup ideas? - jonnygoodwin
I&#x27;m curious as to what everyone&#x27;s process is for validating their ideas. I&#x27;ve always just built a landing page, sent some traffic to it, and tested if it converts. If that test &quot;passes&quot; then I try to sell something. Only then does an idea have legs.<p>This seems to be what everyone&#x27;s doing. But there&#x27;s got to be other ways to validate an idea. Is anyone doing anything unique?<p>I provide free startup ideas at startupsfromthebottom.com, and everyone&#x27;s next question is: &quot;Did you validate this?&quot; I need better&#x2F;more ideas for how THEY can validate it.<p>So...what do you do to validate your ideas?
======
eulid55
From my experience, it's mostly about creating value or filling a need, most
of the interviews I have read, they either did user interviews, built a
simpler version of the product and iterate on it. In a nutshell I would say
there's not a single way for all startups to validate their idea, it depends
on the industry an what you are building as well as where the idea originated
from.

[https://launchbasket.com/interview-with-laurent-
pellegrino-t...](https://launchbasket.com/interview-with-laurent-pellegrino-
the-founder-of-noticeable/) [https://launchbasket.com/building-a-30000-month-
user-testing...](https://launchbasket.com/building-a-30000-month-user-testing-
platform-an-interview-with-askable-co-founder-andreas-zhou/)
[https://launchbasket.com/building-a-60k-month-online-
lending...](https://launchbasket.com/building-a-60k-month-online-lending-
business-an-interview-with-fig-loans-co-founder-ceo-jeff-zhou/)
[https://launchbasket.com/the-details-of-
building-a-15k-month...](https://launchbasket.com/the-details-of-
building-a-15k-month-wordpress-plugin-business-an-interview-with-wp-fusion-
founder-jack-arturo/) [https://launchbasket.com/building-a-1000-month-slack-
bot-an-...](https://launchbasket.com/building-a-1000-month-slack-bot-an-
interview-with-the-founder-of-pull-reminders-abi-noda/)

------
catchmeifyoucan
Companies don't exist without customers. You can make zero profit, sell no
useful products, but still be alive because you have customers.

Knowing that there is a potential market is a start. But your goal is
customers.

My advice to validate a startup is to find your customers. Not your friends or
peers, but push yourself to find customers everywhere. Start stalking linkedin
profiles, get emails of potential clients. Tell them what you have. Will they
pay for this? Just go out and amass a wealth of potential customers. People
who are willing to onboard before you even launch.

Finding customers is like attending a career fair, you meet every recruiter
(customer) and try to get them to hire you (buy your product). For every good
match you hand a resume, and that's your landing page. But you can still get
hired without a great resume, just meet as many of the recruiters and have
great conversations. For those who you didn't get to talk to, your resume
(landing page) speaks for itself. But your greatest chances are with those who
you spoke with personally. Throw your landing page everywhere, but get out and
find customers 1:1.

Startups fail because they can't find customers.

------
zxlk21e
Step 1. Get the idea in front of users as quickly as possible. Pre MVP.

Step 2. Get the partial MVP in front of users as quickly as possible. Mid MVP.

Step 3. Get the MVP in front of users as quickly as possible. Post MVP.

Really, I just care about getting things in front of users. I've launched and
failed like 10-15 "startups" at this point. I tend to solve problems that
don't exist, or that aren't correctly solved by my software.

I built out UserInsights.com exactly for this reason. And you better believe I
had it in front of users at every step of the way. Probably why it's my only
success to date.

Onward!

------
mijustin
Think about validation like an iterative series of steps.

The first step (even before you have an idea preferably) is to identify who
you want to serve. What target market are you going after?

I think it's wisest not to go after beginners. More about that here:
[https://justinjackson.ca/beginners](https://justinjackson.ca/beginners)

Next, you need to observe your target market. What do they struggle with, that
they'd be willing to pay for? What evidence do you have of this?

~~~
jonnygoodwin
Thanks Justin. I've followed your blog for the past few years, and really
appreciate the input. So ideally, you know the market and are part of it? That
would make less work on the validation side of things. But if you don't think
you know your customer perfectly, how can you find out what they struggle with
and would be willing to pay for?

Surveys, landing pages, etc...? Got any more?

------
gakos
Agree with other comments here about the priority of getting user feedback.
But one lesson we learned is that the best feedback comes from strangers, who
have no reason to support your idea (ie. unlike your mom who will always love
it). There is a graph about this in the Startup School courses. We used a
service called Erlibird to get this feedback (there are plenty of others too)
- reasonable cost, high-quality responses.

------
niko001
startupsfromthebottom.com looks interesting! Do you come up with the ideas
yourself, or what does your process look like?

What you describe (building a landing page or an MVP) is how most people do
it. I would start even before that, since you should try to spend no more time
than necessary on something that you don't even know is actually viable.

However, you obviously need to find out if potential customers are excited
about your idea. In my experience, the following validation process works
best:

* Write down a) the problem you're trying to solve and b) your solution. It's tempting to skip this step, but a lot of ideas may sound awesome while they're in your head, however that might change once you transform it from an abstract thought into 2–3 sentences. Try to be as succinct as possible while still capturing the core of your value proposition.

* Create a questionnaire based on your idea. Make sure to ask questions that are actually predictive of whether your idea might take off, such as "How often are you facing this problem" rather than "Have you ever faced this problem". Use a tool like SurveyMonkey or Typeform to put your survey online.

* Identify people in your target audience. This is hard. Don't simply email the survey link to your friends - because of something called "Interviewer bias", your friends & family will rate your ideas more favorably than an idea coming from some other anonymous source. Also, it's highly likely that your friends aren't actually in your target audience.

I run IdeaCheck.io[0], where we generate a questionnaire based on your idea
and use a panel of respondents to gather direct feedback from your actual
target audience. You can read more about IdeaCheck in my Indie Hackers
interview[1].

[0] [https://ideacheck.io](https://ideacheck.io)

[1] [https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/ideacheck-
io](https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/ideacheck-io)

~~~
jonnygoodwin
Thanks for the insights. I've actually never created a questionnaire before,
but that sounds like a good idea.

Right now, we base our ideas off of problems that we or others find. But who's
to say our ideas are the right solution? Obviously they still need validated.

Also, I like you're idea. Very interesting concept.

------
itamarst
Validation is backwards: [https://stackingthebricks.com/validation-is-
backwards/](https://stackingthebricks.com/validation-is-backwards/)

