How to Validate a Business Idea (Insights from 10 Industry Leaders)

If overestimated or not fully thought through, your business idea might not deliver as expected. This is something even the most successful brands like Facebook with their Facebook Home know well.

Built to offer users the convenience of responding to messages without opening the main Facebook app, the company thought Facebook Home was a mega-idea. Big enough to elicit a $99 subscription for two years. Less than a month after launching the price was down to a mere $0.99.

For your business to have a better chance of success, you should test it out and have the right tools to help. Dive in below for advice from successful business owners that will give you insights on how to validate a business idea.

Free Download

The Ultimate Guide to Website Traffic for Business

#1. The Client Calls the Shots

Reviewing all of your input and determining what works best for your clients is vital when validating a business concept. Interviews allow you to get to the core of what resonates with your customers. Every business owner fears getting ignored. As you make decisions based on your findings, remember it is about the client and not what you think is best for your company.

– Thilo Huellmann, CTO Levity.ai.

#2. Test the Idea in the Actual Marketplace

A clear, concrete vision of a profitable business can be highly elusive for an entrepreneur. You may have a lot of trial and error before getting a business model that works, though, along the way, some things you envision may not materialize. The only authentic way to validate a business idea is to test it under actual market conditions and tweak the model along the way.

– David Reischer, Attorney & CEO LegalAdvice.com.

#3. Obtain Adequate Feedback

Interview at least 50 individuals to see what they think of your idea. Find out whether they believe your idea solves a problem and how much they can part with to get your products or services. Ask them open-ended questions to see what solutions they can come up with. Heavily invest in your customer service when dealing with your first few clients.

– Reece Griffin, Founder & CEO MirrorTrip.

#4. Market the Idea Before Creating an MVP

Create a landing page or ads. Does your idea attract customers? How many can you convert from these advertising efforts, and what are their reviews on the products or services? Once you have a good idea of what customers are expecting, you can then develop an MVP.

– Michaeł Suski, Co-Founder Surfer.

#5. Do Extensive Groundwork

Often, entrepreneurs only do light research blindly, hoping that their competition is small and not that hard to outsmart. You are about to commit yourself to a seven to ten-year journey. So, you should go into it knowing as much as you can about your marketplace and still be enthusiastic about your idea.

– Matt Warren, CEO Veeqo.

#6. Experiment and Adjust Accordingly

Often, your first concept functions as a springboard for a more advanced version since you’ll likely need to alter it. There are multiple ways of experimentation as you go through the validation process, including landing page and MVP creation, email interview, A/B comparison, and a crowdfunding website. As you analyze your findings, pay attention to your target market, pricing, and demand.

– Mike Chappell, Founder FormsPal LLC.

#7. Make it Exist, Then Make it Better

A mistake investors make is trying to begin from perfection. You wouldn’t want your many hours and funds to go to waste because you started your idea from the finishing point when only a handful liked it. Launch the product with only the basic requirements. You can slowly upgrade to suit the needs of your target customer base.

– Michael Alexis, CEO TeamBuilding.com.

#8. Launch the Idea in the Shortest Period Possible

You can do vigorous research on your idea. But until you start earning from it, you don’t know whether your idea is the next big thing or not. Launch your MVP the soonest you can and upgrade it as time goes on. For non-product-based ideas, get first-hand experience from the industry to determine whether it works.

– Johannes Larsson, Founder Financer.com.

#9. Use a Niche Product to Solve a Relatable Problem

Excellent idea creation begins by looking at your challenges or those of loved ones. If you are able to prove that your product works effectively within your network, you can start attracting paying customers. Many entrepreneurs tend to think they have to solve major issues for their business to attract a large clientele. However, creating a niche product delivers what most of your competition is not, and is an excellent way to establish your position in a flooded market. Finding ways to infuse new ideas into already existing products is a superb way to validate your business idea.

– Ryan Fyfe, COO Workpuls.

#10. Embrace Uniqueness

Consider the validation process as experimentation before getting absorbed too much into your idea. It is pretty easy to develop a brand new category than trying to be successful in an already packed category with the established competition. When you concentrate on simplifying your idea and making it easily distinguishable from related ones, it is less challenging for you to gain traction.

– Blake Miner, Founder Flaneur Life.

Guest author: Ivan Petrovic is CEO at Workpuls, a workforce productivity and analytics platform that helps organizations drive productivity, benchmark performance and improve efficiency.