How to Test and Validate your Product or Business Idea
Did you know that most business concepts fail within the first year of operation?
Many new entrepreneurs make the mistake of getting so caught up in the thrill of establishing their enterprises that they fail to test their concepts to ensure a market for them.
It's a mistake to believe you will always know what people want or are prepared to spend money on. Thus, it is critical to validate your business idea before starting a business. One of the best ways is to use a little introduction or a sample product. This post will cover using a sample product to validate your idea.
What is a Sample Product?
A sample product is a sample of a good or service supplied to the customer to try the product before making a purchase decision. These products are usually presented as Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) or prototypes in the technology industry.
While MVPs and prototypes are often used interchangeably, they have distinct meanings. An MVP is a limited-featured early version of a product designed to gather consumer feedback for improvement in the development of the product. On the other hand, a prototype is a basic sample, mock-up, or model of a product used to produce MVPs, variants, and final goods.
It's critical to understand the numerous tactics you may use to validate your idea, whether you utilise an MVP or a prototype. The four greatest techniques to validate your business idea are:
1. Share your Idea with Others
When it comes to building a product, innovators' biggest mistake is keeping the concept to themselves. I’m a strong believer that you should in fact tell others about your concept. Sharing your concept with others is the first step not only to validate it but to build some momentum and motivate yourself to pursue it.
The most common fear of most entrepreneurs is that their ideas will be stolen. In actuality, it is incredibly rare for anyone to steal an idea.
In the US, Provisional patents safeguard your product concept for a year, which should make you feel more at ease sharing it and collaborating with others. Patents refer to the sole right granted to an individual by the government to an inventor for a set period and this prevents others from making, selling or using such invention.
Because patents take time and money to obtain, you should validate your product before applying for a full patent. The provisional patent is a good place to start and only costs a few hundred dollars. It is not advisable to spend thousands of dollars on a complete patent before revealing your concept.
2. Conduct Market Research
Contrary to popular belief, people don't buy items just because they're appealing. People purchase products to remedy an issue. Some people may seek to learn a new skill to advance their professions or transfer careers. Others may be interested in purchasing an app or product that will help them improve their social status.
In either case, if your product doesn't solve an issue, it won't sell.
To find out if your product will solve a key problem for many people, you need to perform a market study with a sample product.
It's worth noting that survey questions like "Would you buy this product?" are fundamentally problematic because most individuals will indicate that yes they'll buy something when in fact they won't.
For instance, if 80% of survey respondents claim they'll buy your goods, real sales will be nowhere near 80%. In actuality, just around 8% of those people are likely to buy your product.
As a result, the best application for surveys is to get feedback on how you could potentially improve your product. Usually, this entails polling questions such as "What characteristics are essential to you?"
Answers to surveys can also help you uncover hidden problems that are quite simple to resolve. For example, survey respondents may say you need to communicate the product's goal or USP more clearly, which is not really a development problem but a packaging one.
Asking the right questions is key to conducting your market research and putting you on the right track.
3. Use a Sales Page Test
Setting up a mock sales page and sending cold traffic to it is another technique to validate your product idea. After that, you simply observe how many people attempt to purchase it. If your product is an app, an eBook, or an online course, this method will be more effective.
You may design an eye-catching ad and sales page using a prototype or MVP. When your audience tries to buy the product, a pop-up message appears, and the message can state something like, "We're sorry, but this item isn't available right now. Please provide your email address, and we'll let you know when it's ready."
Using a sales page test is a great method to see if people would be interested in purchasing rapidly. You can easily create a sales page test using many online templates and customise to suit your needs.
4. Pre-selling
Pre-selling is particularly executed among digital startups, who spend a lot of effort building a program, software, or app only to discover that no one wants to use it. Pre-selling is extremely beneficial in this regard.
You can begin pre-selling your product or service before it is built to test interest. Of course, you should be cautious not to dupe buyers into buying something you don't intend to fulfil, but if you're transparent about it, this method can give you a good picture of how much demand there really is for your product or service.
The wrap up
Many entrepreneurs mistake getting so wrapped up in the excitement of starting a business that they forget to test their ideas to see if there’s a market for them.
A sample product is a mini introductiont of a good or service given to a customer to test out before buying it. These items are sometimes referred to as minimum viable products (MVPs) or prototypes in the technology world. Although MVPs and prototypes are often used interchangeably, they have different meanings.
You can validate your product idea with a sample product by sharing your idea with others, doing a market study, employing a sales page test, and pre-selling.