Five Steps to Validate Your Business Idea

What is idea validation?

Every business begins with an idea of a product you want to sell or a service you want to offer. Idea validation determines if the business idea is worth pursuing and has the potential to be a successful and sustainable business. It is the first crucial step that is as important as the product or service itself.

Why is idea validation important?

Idea validation ascertains if there is a market demand for the product or service concept you are developing, if the timing is right to launch it and if it is a viable business idea. It minimises the risks of implementing ideas that lack product-market fit and reduces the risk of failure and loss of limited resources. The idea validation process also provides you with a better understanding of the market and insights into the safeguarding measures you may need to undertake. It prepares you for the market challenges you may face ahead.

Five steps to validating your business idea

Establish goals, assumptions and hypotheses

Clearly define your goals. Identify and test all your assumptions you may have regarding your idea. Develop a hypothesis based on your defined goals.

Assess market size and share

Estimate the size of your target market and the market share you could potentially capture.

Know your competition

Conduct a competitor research. Evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Examine the strengths and weaknesses of their products and services, as well as their price points. Identify if there are any market gaps that you can exploit.

Discover and engage your customers

Identify and get to know your customers. Conduct interviews or surveys to assess if your idea resonates with them and worth pursuing. Find out about their motivations, preferences, needs, and the products they currently use. Ask them if they will buy your product or service. Take note of their feedback to further improve your idea.

Test your product or service

Build a prototype of your product or a beta version of your service. Use them to demonstrate a feature, functionality or an overall concept to simulate use, intent, effect and value to and for users. Conduct testing with real users to ensure your product or service is meeting their needs and are free from any flaws, faults and issues. Gather input and feedback from the testers to help you better leverage and meet your customer needs.

References

Alcock, M. (2020, March 28). Business idea validation: Why you need to do it. Medium. Retrieved June 15, 2021, from https://medium.com/@mattalcock/business-idea-validation-why-you-need-to-do-it-1581aea256d1

Business Tasmania. (n.d.). Idea validation. Tasmanian Government. Retrieved June 15, 2021, from https://www.business.tas.gov.au/starting/idea_validation

Cote, C. (2020, August 18). 5 steps to validate your business idea. Harvard Business School Online. Retrieved June 15, 2021, from https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/market-validation

Gill, P. (2017, October 9). How to validate your idea before starting an enterprise. Entrepreneur. Retrieved June 15, 2021, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/302375

Hughes, D. (2020, February 12). 7 essential steps to validate your business idea. GoDaddy Singapore. Retrieved June 15, 2021, from https://www.godaddy.com/garage/how-to-validate-new-business-idea/

Tjellesen, M. J. (2018, March 26). The power of prototypes – from initial idea to final product. LinkedIn. Retrieved June 15, 2021, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-prototypes-from-initial-idea-final-product-just-jakobsen