Validate your solution

Will people pay for it?

Once you’ve asked yourself if you’re solving a problem that’s worth it, you have to ask yourself: “Are people going to pay for it?”.

This step is important, because even if your solution is amazing, if people aren’t willing to fork out their money for it then your startup is bound to fail.

Naturally, there are lots of free products out there that can be used for free but are monetised in a different way, such as ads in apps for example. But the same rule of thumb applies, people must want your product/service enough to endure the ads.

In this section, we are going to show you how to validate your solution so that you can be confident it will work before you pour blood, sweat, tears and money into it.

Validation tools

There is more than one way to validate your solution, like pre-orders and email collection which can be done through a website or landing page, and asking your target audience what they think of your product/service using surveys.

Landing page

You can create a simple landing page that promotes your product/service and have people register their interest by signing up to receive updates via email. By sharing the page on social media and/or paying to promote it by paying for ads on Google, Facebook or anywhere you think your target audience might see it.

Temporary Landing Pages are often designed to “tease”the viewer - if it were for a new car, it might show only part (the best part of course) and tempt you with amazing numbers (top speed or range). Think how you might make your landing page intriguing so the viewer wants to ask more?

Landing pages are relatively straightforward to set up thanks to website builders such as Wix or Wordpress and don’t take too long to make. Just ensure that you know how you’re going to direct traffic to your landing page, otherwise what’s the point?

Surveys

Surveys are a great way of collecting quantitative data about your product or service. They can provide valuable feedback as long as you make sure you’re asking the right people (a.k.a. your target audience) the right questions. Be wary of accidentally ask leading questions that might influence people to answer a certain way instead of saying how they genuinely feel, which leads to useless data.

Interviews and Focus Groups

For more detailed insights, you might want to consider one-on-one interviews or focus groups where you can have a real conversation about what makes your idea good, bad, expensive, or too fiddly. The trick with interviews and focus groups is to make everyone feel at ease so that the conversation flows naturally and people can talk about their opinions without feeling awkward or judged.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a great way to validate your idea, but you need to have enough to show the crowd in order to attract enough people to invest - which can require substantial time and money in the first place. The good news is that if you meet your funding goals, then it is usually a good indicator that your product/service is worth it to enough people.

Market size - are there enough people interested in your solution?

So you have a solution that solves a problem that people would pay for, but now comes another question: “How many people would actually buy your product/service?”.

This is a question that investors will ask you all the time. They want to know that the market is big enough to make it worth investing in your startup - think $100 Million and above if you want to attract serious investors - although a smaller market size in a strong niche with excellent margins can attract focused investors too.

Once you’ve validated your solution, it’s time to focus on generating and showing traction to attract further investors. We’ll detail the different types of traction to focus on depending on your type of product/service, and how to generate traction in different ways in the next chapter.