How do you validate a business idea without money?

Business ideas usually require validation to make sure they are viable. There a many ways for business idea validation.

You would hear talk about statistical data on the market, market research, customer interviews etc.

But today, I will be introducing you to a simple and inexpensive method that would help you validate your business idea without breaking the bank

Like you already know, businesses fail for many different reasons. So validating your idea helps you reduce failure by identifying ideas to avoid starting in the first place or helping you uncover the exact problem you should actually be solving for your customers.

5 Business Idea Validation Questions you should ask yourself

1. Is there a market for my product or service?
   If nobody needs what you are offering then your idea would fail miserably before it even leaves the ground because you would NO customer apart from your kind hearted family & friends who want to encourage you.
   
2. Is the Market for your business is big enough?
   The smaller your market size, the higher your profit margins have to be to sustain that business. If your market is too small, you would have a hard time making profits and eventually fail.
   
3. Does your business solve a painful problem?
   Your product or service has to solve a need customers are willing to pay to see go away. if this is not the case with your idea, No revenue model or marketing tactic you employ would result in success.
   
4. What is the Frequency of this pain?
   Frequency refers to how often the problem your idea solves occurs or how often your customers need the solution. For instance, a solution like Uber, the frequency for transportation need is high! People have to move from one place to another “frequently“.
   So how often would your users need your solution? Daily, Monthly, Yearly, once in a while, etc.
   
5. Are Supporting Technologies Available?
   If you have built a mobile app to serve users in a town where smartphones or access to the internet are limited, then you don’t have a business. if they have smartphones and can’t use them, it is the same story. You have to consider the degree of technology penetration in your market.

So take a sheet of paper and answer those 5 Key Questions before you continue… it is very important you do this.

One major killer of business ideas is assumption.
You may be tempted to assume you have positive answers to the question above – fight it.

Also, fight the temptation to avoid critically looking into areas you think may be problematic to your business for the fear that it may “spoil” your idea.

The Entrepreneurs that succeeds don’t deny the existence of problems in their business, They solve them. and like I always say…

…Don’t hold on to an inefficient fact or principle just because it’s your “PRINCIPLE”. In the light of truth, blessed is he who lowers his EGO to accept change!

Godson Okorodudu

With that said, let’s proceed to the next section on how to…

Validate a Business Idea with Landing pages

Landing pages are very inexpensive ways for validating business ideas. I would explain how it works, then walk you through it step by step.
So you can do it yourself, is that cool?

I guessed so.

Instead of hiring a website designer or developer to float your business website or application, a landing page is a cheap test you want to use to see how customers respond to your idea.

A landing page is a page that focuses the power of one:

One Main Idea & One main action

So… the information on your landing page has to be really small and precise. Provide answers the questions below using my 2W-2H formula:

What is your business building?
Who is it for (Average user)?

How does it benefit them?
How can they participate ?

From the image above you can clearly understand what the business does, who it is for and what actions you need to take to benefit.

After setting up a landing page of that sort, you need to drive traffic to the page and see how your prospective customers respond to the idea. If a lot of people are willing to drop their information to know when you launch – you should take that as a good sign.

For your business to succeed you have to build something many people want. To do this, you need to find a way to get into your customers head, what are they thinking, what are their challenges, what features do they need.

You need to uncover the problem and likely solution and then build a product based on that solution. I order to do this here are —

4 Idea Validation Questions to ask Customers

To collect more information about the customer needs and preferences, I use a free tool– typeform as well as organizing live customer interviews.

Depending on the questions you ask using the online form (provided by typeform or any other form builder), you can uncover very valuable initiative that would help you frame your solution correctly.

Here are a few question ideas that should jump-start your thinking process…

1. Ask questions that help you uncover the expectations of your users
   What do they expect to be able to do/achieve or benefit by using your product? What is the transformation that would happen in their lives as a result of using your product/service?
   
   If it’s a consultancy service, what would happen to them or their business after they use this service.
   
2. Ask questions that help you know how much your customers are willing to pay for your solution
   Use tactical questions to reveal the price points or how much value your solution is perceived to be worth.
   
   This would help put a price that customers are willing to pay or help you strick off the idea– if the price would not allow for enough margin business profitability.
   
3. Ask question that reveal the frequency of your clients needs
   You want to know how often your solution is needed by your different customer segment
   
   Like I explained earlier you want to find-out from actual customers how often they need your service or product.
   
4. Ask question that helps you build a more realistic demography of your target customer
   Get answers that help you put your customers into different segments (this would help your marketing greatly)
   
   Knowing exactly who your customers are would help you choose the tone or your marketing message, the media your buy for advertising, pricing, etc.

This list is not exhaustive, one way to think of question ideas is to ask questions that would help frame the BUSINESS i.e solution, you would bring to the market.

WRAPPING UP

You should never spend money building a business without first validating the idea by testing it with actual customers- not family and friends except they are your ideal customer.

There are two simple inexpensive techniques to do validate your business ideas, which are –

1. Ask yourself the idea validation questions above, that help you determine if the idea is worth it.
2. Get into the mind of your target customers by asking critical questions using a landing pages, forms & hosting customer interview sessions.

So over to you….
How have you successfully validated an idea in the past. I would like to know…

and if you need to hire a landing page expert click this link → Landing Page Design Freelancers