How to validate your online business idea?
What do you need to do to validate your online business idea? Check out the steps we have prepared to help you!
Is your idea about a trip? Does your business idea have a future? Will your business be successful? Can you validate your business idea with little money?
To validate an idea is to create an action plan to put your business idea to the test! And see if it is something that makes sense to the target audience that you will seek to reach. In other words, validation is a methodology for understanding whether a niche is interested in the product or service you will develop.
Often the entrepreneurial kick-off to test your idea's validity is to share it with friends and family. For example, someone can start making vegan products, embroidery, photographs, among other activities, and put their mouths on the trombone offering to people close to them.
Suddenly, that person realizes that he is selling the idea! Friends start to indicate as a reference in the area, the family begins to consume the product, and this expands. Until, suddenly, you realize that the seed of entrepreneurship has been planted and is flourishing.
This is an overall process, but in some, the creative and newly entrepreneurial person may feel a lack of clarity and direction to launch the business once and for all. It is usual for doubts to arise, and they are fundamental for this business that started intuitively, to gain more strength to fly high!
That's where validation comes in as a way to test the product or service before you even invest more money and energy in the idea. Confirmation brings more clarity to your business vision, allowing you to make more proactive decisions and aligned with your purpose of undertaking and what your audience is looking for.
What are the problems of not validating my business idea?
Okay, but what if you don't want to validate your business idea? What if you're going to follow the flow and see what will happen?
Not validating your business idea can create a series of problems in the future of the venture. It's a headache for sure!
First, you may invest a lot in your idea, either financially or in terms of time and effort. However, there is no guarantee that people will be interested in the product or service offered, which brings you back to square one.
You may also not find the ideal audience for your product or service. You may run the risk of not seeing your people and talking with the wind. And along the way, your enterprise will encounter communication and growth barriers that will be difficult to overcome.
Do not validate the idea; you lose the thread of your creative business. As things can happen more intuitively, you end up failing the focus of the concept and will not be clear about where to go and how to grow.
The answer, are you still thinking about following the flow and launching yourself into the world without first validating your idea? If so, see you around!
Now that you know the importance of validating your business idea, it's time to find out how to do that in practice. Understand the eight essential steps to perform the validation! And put yourself at the service of the world
# 1 Recognition
The first step in validating your business idea is a process that must take place before validation: recognition
It refers to the process of understanding who you are, what your main talents, skills, and interests are, and what makes your eyes shine. An idea can only work when you align what you are with what you do!
# 2 Opportunities
Now that you've understood your human and creative capital's full power map, the opportunities around. This is the time to expand the vision and let the creativity flow, writing down all the ideas that come up and becoming a business opportunity.
# 3 Knowledge
With all your ideas, it is time to invest in one or some of them effectively. It is necessary that you become an expert in this matter, a reference, to effectively understand whether the idea is viable in the current market or not.
So search for knowledge! Search scenarios, references, scientific articles, people who already do similar things, laws, and political issues are related to your idea!
# 4 Hypotheses
When you already know the world scenario and the place where you live related to your idea, it is necessary to create some hypotheses to be put to the test at the validation time. That is, what assumptions will you make to ensure that your idea works?
For example, you are a chef and want to undertake by creating a vegan food delivery business. The hypothesis to be made is: how many people would be interested in buying vegan food that is delivered at home?
Step 4 is time for you to create the essential questions for your idea to stand. Write them all down!
# 5 Target audience
As much as you want to reach many people at the same time as your work, it is unlikely and not recommended that you do this. After all, each group of people has different interests, wants, and needs.
The truth is: your job is not for everyone! And it's okay with that!
Therefore, it is essential to define a target audience for your idea, a niche market interested in the product or service you offer. From there, you can validate your idea, reaching out to these people, and talking!
# 6 Research
You have chosen an idea that makes sense to you, and you already know who those people are likely to be interested in. Now is the time to test and understand if it all makes sense to your target audience.
Get out of the idea a little and focus more on the problems - pains - of your target audience. For that, generate conversation! Do some research with these people to identify if they are interested in your ideas and what problems they would like to solve.
# 7 Prototype
There is a need to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) when it comes to validation. It will simplify your idea! A materialization of your product or service in the simplest and most accessible way possible. When creating your MVP, you can test the concept in practice without the need for a considerable investment.
Prototype your idea and put it in the world. That's because if a small group of people is interested in your MVP, it is very likely that a large group will buy your finished product.
# 8 Feedback
After the prototype is launched, it is essential to collect feedback from the group of people who have consumed your product or service. It is at this point in the validity period that you will understand if it is necessary to make any adjustments, what are the main advantages and disadvantages of your product, what is the best way to realize the idea in the market, among other essential information to guide the future of your business creative.
With these eight steps as a guide, you can plan and organize yourself strategically to validate your idea, experiencing how it can generate value for your online business!
Post a Comment