I get it, you are all hyped, you are ready to turn the world upside down -the staggering reality is only 20% of startups really get to do.

Let's call idea validation saving your face, you can identify loose ends in your idea and probably work on them or develop a new model.

The success of your business in testing and adapting.

What is idea validation?

Idea validation confirms the popular quote “think before you act”. Relatably it's testing and validation of a startup before launch.

Idea validation brings you face-to-face with reality rather than gut feelings.

Why you should validate your idea?

The biggest challenge in developing good business ideas is understanding what people want and need.

You have to be able to empathize with your customers and understand what they're looking for.

(James Altucher)

Validating your idea helps you:

  • prevent waste of resources;
  • It allows you to understand if your product is market fit.

What to validate?

Surprised about this portion of the article well, I thought I will emphasize here again, what we are validating is your business idea. Our aim is to figure out if it's viable and feasible.

Tools for idea validation

Trying to validate your idea without the right tools can be chaotic. The following tools will help you track your progress.

  1. Validation board.
  2. Validation canvas.

Steps that guarantee successful validation

  1. Keep it simple;
  2. Involve the target audience;
  3. Take lessons from established or niche players in your industry.

Our goal in discovery is to validate our ideas the fastest, cheapest way possible. Discovery is about the need for speed. This lets us try out many ideas, and for the promising ideas, try out multiple approaches.

There are many different types of ideas, many different types of products, and variety of different risks that we need to address (value risk, usability risk, feasibility risk, and business risk). So, we have a wide range of techniques, each suitable to different situations.

What validation is not

Validation is not an assumption or prediction. Validation is drawn from real data and physical evidence that shows that an idea is visible.

Validation is not a one way round, you will discover what suits your target audience and what that implies is constant iteration.

Validation doesn't guarantee success. Okay, let's unpack this. Validation is an important part of your startup's success, it, however, takes the proper working of every essential part of a business to make it successful. (I.e. marketing, sales, etc.)

Validation is not easy, more than often the reason why a few businesses give up too early.

Validation is not for brand building while validating the goal is not have raving fans; just a few who love your product and are willing to give you honest feedback to help you improve.

How to validate your startup idea?

  1. Validate your customer: To do this effectively you must understand your user persona (psychographic, demographic, and geographic attributes).
  2. Market Research: Investigate your competitors. Tools like SEMrush and social media has made this easy. Compare their marketing channel, their unique selling, proportion, product benefit, and market size.
  3. USP testing; Test your unique value proposition.
  4. Audit and analyze.

Tools to enhance idea validation

  1. Ahref;
  2. Google trend;
  3. Buzzsumo;
  4. Product pages;
  5. Appoint-ly;
  6. Type form;
  7. Quora.

In conclusion, Ideas are subject to testing, this process should not be skipped or omitted as it can hurt the growth of a potentially viable business.