To validate something means to “check or prove the validity or accuracy of” something. Before an entrepreneur goes ahead with his startup, there are a lot of doubts that he might have in his mind and he would get confidence with some sort of 3rd party validation.
Validations can be helpful for a lot of things and give confidence in an idea but what can be the ways to obtain such validations? Why is it important to have validation before the app development process commences? How will it help the app development process if the idea is validated by the entrepreneur himself?
To start off here are some of the easiest ways an idea can be validated.
1. Starbucks Test
This can be the easiest test. Just walk into the nearest Starbucks and talk to a random person. Ask them for a bit of their time in turn of buying them a coffee. Present your startup idea and let them believe it’s a friend or a relative. The anonymity of the founder will help them be absolutely honest about giving feedback to you about your idea.
2. Social Media polls
Social media posts can help you get the sentiments of the users about a topic or idea. The easiest steps to get validations from social media is to share your idea on all of your social media accounts, identify which of the social media friends match the possible client/target audience and message them to get feedback. You can also find relevant communities and groups and engage them to get input. You can also create polls on twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and more websites.
3. Forums
There are forums which are specifically created to discuss a particular service/product. All you have to do is to get there and ask for feedback about your idea. Simply create a new post about the idea and watch the comments.
4. Reddit/Product Hunt
Reddit is a great community of passionate and active users talking about pretty much every possible topic. All you have to do is find a relevant sub-reddit and post the idea there. People will leave their comments and honest feedback. Product Hunt is another amazing website which lists a lot of startups doing amazing things and as such it’s a great place to find out what things interest people and get them excited.
5. Survey Tools/Google Docs
Google docs have come a long way since Google acquired Writely. They have continuously added newer functionalities and one of them is feedback forms which are used by a lot of companies. There are several tools like SurveyMonkey and more or companies just prefer Google docs to collect feedback. Create a simple survey and send into some of your contacts. Ask them to share with some of their contacts.
6. Adwords/Facebook campaigns
Facebook does pay to advertise and Google has been predominantly an advertising company. The paid campaigns created on these websites can be a great pointer at knowing what kind of traffic is generated through the ads. All you need to do is drive the traffic to certain landing pages to know if people convert and like the idea.
Then there are a lot of signs which will prove that it is a worthwhile idea. If people like your idea, they will discuss and talk about it and will be generally excited to test and help you out in any possible manner. Also, if the founders are really passionate they would go a step ahead and get a hands on experience. So for example, if they are thinking to develop a Gym app, they would actually go to the gym. You benefit by learning as much as you can about the problem you want to solve. An app will be developed to solve a certain issue and make lives easier for people.
Conclusion
Validation does a great job of providing confidence and if a lot of people find the idea not so good, then correcting the vision and path. A meaningful change to make something better is never a bad idea. Apps are a big investment, whether in terms of resources, finances or time and as such before embarking on the app development journey, the startup idea should be absolutely clear. The founders should have no doubts about any aspect of the business.
A typical app for iOS and Android will take up to $25000 minimum and as such validating, an idea is an absolute must before the startup turns into reality. Even for raising funds, the validation will serve as a useful source of data and as such validation will help in a lot of other aspects besides just development of the app.
How would you go about validating your idea? What steps do you think are important. Share with us and we would love to hear your perspective.