Ideas are Cheap
The title of this post is a direct quote from one of my favourite guys in the startup scene. I can’t believe how much truth there is to this statement. A year or so ago, I believed ideas ruled the world, now, I recognize the importance of a great idea, but how do you know its great? Even the greatest idea means nothing unless it’s in the right hands. Execution should be right up there.
Thinking your idea is great is one thing but is it a valid idea? How do you validate an idea? I’m sure there’s tons of ways to do this but my recent learnings feel great and I must share. Bottom line, talk to as many people as you can. Less pitching and more listening. In fact, I’d try not to pitch at all, ask questions and listen. Take notes and absorb the information you will receive. Some meetings will be better than others but you’re almost guaranteed to learn and become smarter every time.
Talk to at least 25 people and go for a hundred plus, if you can. It’s hard work but well worth it. Maybe you invalidate the idea or fall out of love with it after the 3rd meeting, but definitely meet with more than one person and try to mix up the diversity of people, while still sticking closely to your target market.
This process changed my life and the way I will do things on going. I’ve worked on several projects where we thought we had a great idea, so, we built a demo. It usually took anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to get a basic prototype and run a private beta. We would watch user behaviour and seek feedback. Once we received all the feedback, from our limited amount of users, we would then spend another 2 weeks to 2 months building out the new features requested.
This process is crazy and a very bad idea. We burn through a lot of time and aren’t even sure it’s a good idea. Another saying I like is, the tree falling in the woods. When you go live, who knows about you? Build it and they will come, not exactly. You need to seriously think about customer acquisition strategies and on-boarding techniques.
To wrap it up, I say this, validate, validate, validate. It’s the new, location, location, location for me. It’s so important and will save you time and money. Everyone could use a little more of both, don’t you think? Now, take that great idea and go talk to some people.
