How Do You Know You Have The Right Startup Idea?

It’s an empirical reality that almost all startups fail. In truth, the extra progressive your startup concept, the upper are its probabilities of failure. In accordance with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, two out of ten new companies fail within the first 12 months of operation and 6 out of ten don’t attain their tenth anniversary. Nonetheless, should you rely solely progressive startups, in response to the Startup Genome project, the variety of failed new enterprises rises to the jaw-dropping 11 out of 12.

This statistic makes it fairly clear that it’s crucial to attempt to determine if in case you have the proper startup concept earlier than totally committing your self and your sources to it to be able to decrease the possibilities you’re losing your effort and time on one thing that’s doomed from its very inception.

The issue is that should you plan to do one thing really new and untested, no professional on this planet would have the ability to inform you if it’s going to work or not. Consequently, it’s as much as you to do the work and validate your concept as shortly and effectively as doable.

The so-called validation experiments are so essential for early-stage startups that they’re changing into industry-standard. Few trendy startup buyers would take note of your app ideas until you could have some type of empirical proof you’re shifting in the proper route in direction of product-market match.

Your objective is easy – to find out if the issue you’re fixing exists in actuality and if the answer you’re planning to implement is viable. And essentially the most convincing proof for each is cash altering arms – income.

The bottom line is to do that with the minimal doable quantity of sources, effort, and time. Usually, you would wish to create a testable prototype and attempt to generate gross sales. Even a useful prototype for an progressive concept, nonetheless, might be fairly pricey, and there’s a lot you are able to do to validate your startup idea earlier than you write a single line of code. Observe these 4 steps.

• Step one is to outline your providing and current it. You may create a touchdown web page or a presentation should you’re going to promote in individual.
• Step two is to seek out your MVS – your minimal viable section. The individuals who have the precise downside you are attempting to resolve and who can typically be reached in an analogous manner. You want to have the ability to promote the identical resolution to a large-enough market section. Tailoring your resolution to the wants of every buyer just isn’t scalable – you’re a startup, not a consultancy, and startups have to be scalable.
• The third step is to attempt to run presales. Attain out to folks in your MVS, put up in social media teams or boards the place these individuals are prone to be, even run small scale well-targeted advert campaigns to judge curiosity. If presales are by no means doable, attempt to acquire your potential prospects’ emails with the promise that you just’re going to contact them upon getting a working prototype. Nonetheless, take into account that individuals are extra possible to provide you their e-mail quite than their cash (particularly in case you are speaking to them in individual).

In case you are promoting in individual, it may be a good suggestion to ask some customer interview questions earlier than making an attempt to promote your resolution.

• The ultimate step is to interview your prospects to be able to collect suggestions. In case your outcomes are usually not what you anticipated, both iterate in your providing or your MVS relying on the suggestions and repeat the entire course of till you could have sufficient proof that your resolution solves an issue prospects want and fortunately pay for.

Whereas going via this course of, ensure to problem your assumptions. Don’t attempt to affect your prospects an excessive amount of – don’t push an answer with out validating a necessity for it. As an alternative, act extra like a scientist looking for out the reality by formulating and testing hypotheses.

Equally importantly – attempt to not get hooked up to your preliminary concept. The objective of the experiment is to problem it and reshape it into one thing extra suited to actuality.

In abstract, earlier than you decide to constructing your model new progressive startup, validate your concept by:

1. Defining your providing
2. Defining your minimal viable buyer section
3. Operating presales
4. Gathering suggestions and evaluating your outcomes