Idea validation is process of thinking on the practicability of the business before the act of executing it. Now the world is filled with Ideas and Innovations. Unique inventions and start-ups are coming up everyday. Your idea should meet the high standards set by the surroundings. For that you should validate your idea based on certain guidelines.
Factors to be considered for Idea Validation
To be sustainable, the business idea should meet the following three criteria:
- Desirability
- Feasibility
- Viability
1. Desirability
The most important independent variable that defines the value proposition of a product from customer perspective is desirability of the product or service which the business is aiming to provide. When a product or brand is desirable, users are attracted to it. Desirability is important because it keeps users engaged at the beginning, attracting them to interact with the product and find its usefulness and usability features.
The desirability is not limited to this. If your product or service is not something new but is aimed at solving the complexity and disorientation in the existing situation then also it will be received well.
2. Feasibility
Product/service feasibility analysis is an assessment of the overall appeal of. the product or service being proposed. Although there are many important things. to consider when launching a new venture, nothing else matters if the product or. service itself doesn’t sell.
Feasibility analysis is the process of determining if a business idea is viable before spending resources on it. Most entrepreneurs do not conduct a feasibility analysis before launching their ventures and that is the cause of most of the failures.
3. Viability
Viability refers to the ability to survive successfully. It is the ultimate goal of any company or business. The decisions and strategies you implement will affect the viability of your venture.
Your short-term or long-term actions and judgments will decide your livelihood in the market. Efficiency and smooth transitioning from early-stage to final-stage of business will be determined by this.
What happens if You Don’t Validate Your Idea?
Many intrapreneurs skip the step of idea validation because they are focusing on strategies and implementing their idea. They think to go with a gut feeling and fall into the trap.
The benefits of idea validation are plenty. When you are thinking about your idea day and night it is very obvious to become disturbed with it. With idea validation, you’ll be able to detect flaws and improve on them before they reach the market.
Idea validation is not giving a guarantee that your business would be a success but provides an opportunity for you to comprehend your time and money on a profitable start-up. This will help in minimising the cost and ensuring whether your idea has real demand or not.
Validating Your Idea Based on the Step of Your Business
1. Early-stage
Early-stage represents that only through verbal or written communication the ideas can be sold or explained. This stage will encourage you to conduct research and market analysis on the product and services you are going to provide. This will include lengthy brainstorming and surveying sessions. Also, mentoring and advice from people who are in the same business you are trying to target will also be helpful.
You need to interact with potential customers, users and experts for analyzing and researching your idea. Secondary research through the internet or related reports and case studies could also be done.
Differentiate carefully between the user and customer. The customer is the one who will pay for the product or service but the user would be the one giving you insight into your product.
When it comes to discussing or brainstorming your ideas there are three types of people around you. People who love you won’t give you frank feedback and those who hate you will discourage you. However, the third one who knows you and understands the market well would not be biased and would give you constructive criticism to work on.
2. Launch Stage
This stage ensures that you have figured out your idea, business model and all other requirements which were not fulfilled during the early stage. You are now ready to launch your proof of concept.
Don’t spend too much money on producing many products. The product has just sufficient characteristics to demonstrate your idea through.
This stage will require you to hire part-time workers or gig resources. The mentors or experts you consult from would be just for a few hours a month to get valuable inputs.
Your ultimate objective is to demonstrate the features of your product and to convey that it can solve the problem of your customers.The price and costing are still not decided and may be expensive because the focus is not on volumes yet.
You will get validation from the feedback you will receive from the users and customers. A reality check and scope of improvement to ensure that the final product meets the expectations is crucial.
3. Growth Stage
This stage means that the full version of your product is ready. There could still be variants present to provide options to the user. The idea is clear and majorly executed for small groups of customers.
Developing traction while meeting the goals and objectives of the business is mandatory. Significant progress on a daily and monthly basis is required so repeating users and having referral customers should be ensured. The cost of your services has been established and year users are able to resolve the problems with the help of the said services.
A wealth of knowledge on launching more services and valid information to experiment while scaling is in your hands now. In other words, this is known as a Minimum Viable Product.
This helps to collect maximum validated information about the customers with a reduced amount of effort. MVP has a central role in the agile development of the product. This will help to release the product quickly, testing the idea before it is exposed to a larger budget and audience and knowing what resonates with the market and what doesn’t.
The growth stage opens investment money in your business through investors or a network of relatives. Desirability and feasibility have been established so your path for viability is cleared.
This is how you can plan and validate your ideas based on the stage of your company.
The idea you believe is revolutionary, will not become dull and boring with idea validation. It will make the possibility of executing it real and transparent. Adhering to the above process would ensure that your product/service will last for a long time with customers.