You’ve got some ideas to solve the problem, but you’re scared that the solution mightn’t work and that it might end up costing you lots of money.
What do you do?
When you’re sharing an idea, everyone else in the room has their negativity bias in full swing. ‘Will this work?’ ‘What’s most likely to go wrong?’ Everyone’s mind is looking to shoot down your idea. It’s not personal, it’s just how our brains operate. That’s why you need to validate.
The validation tool covers three areas.
- Is this a problem worth solving?
- Is the market willing to pay for the solution?
- Will our solution actually work?
1. Is this a problem worth solving?
Let’s face it, there’s not much point trying to solve a problem that no one else thinks is worth solving. Find out whether it’s an issue by checking out forums, chat’s, user groups, customer logs, etc. If no one’s talking about it, maybe it’s not worth solving.
2. Is the market willing to pay for the solution?
Okay, you’ve all agreed the problem is worth solving, but will people be willing to pay for the solution. Asking someone isn’t usually good enough.
It’s better to see how someone reacts. That means building something like a landing page with a 'buy now' button on it. If people visit the page, it reaffirms it’s a problem people want to be solved, and if they click on the buy now button, it proves they are willing to pay for it. Oh, by the way, you don’t have to have the product solution started, just send them to a page saying something like ‘We’re so glad you interested in our solution, we’re not quite ready to launch yet, but leave your details so we can let you know the we’re ready to ship.’
3. Will our solution actually work?
Again asking someone if something works isn’t anywhere near as powerful as watching how someone reacts. Test a rough prototype on 5 people, see how they behave, and then ask them questions about their actions. For example, “I noticed that you didn’t touch that, why was that the case?” Or “I noticed you kept looking at… what was going through your mind at that moment?”