Do you like to have a good insight into your business idea even before investing any time or money? Validating business ideas is a key thing when you are developing a new project, and now I’m going to tell you the quickest way I learned to do it before the costs start to be a risk factor.
KEY POINTS
These are the key point I’m going to talk about along this post. Feel free to read them in sequential order or going right to the one attract you the most:
- THE QUICKEST WAY OF VALIDATING BUSINESS IDEAS. THE 10 PEOPLE CHALLENGE.
- DON’T BE AFRAID TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR IDEA.
- DON’T TAKE IT PERSONAL.
- BE METHODICAL.
- REVIEW AND/OR ADVANCE.
1. THE QUICKEST WAY OF VALIDATING BUSINESS IDEAS. THE 10 PEOPLE CHALLENGE.
Maybe you know from The book club in Freenancial Exposed that I read a lot of books. I love it, and I also love to share with you the books and the learnings I think it could help you the most. Probably I’m going to talk about the book Will it fly?, by Pat Flynn, very soon. It’s an excellent book and this article it’s based in one of its chapters, a little bit adapted using my experience and my way of doing things. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation when you make a purchase through this link along this post. Thanks]
WHAT IS “THE 10 PEOPLE CHALLENGE”?
It’s really easy to understand, but not so easy to do it sometimes. In Pat Flynn’s own words:
“Your challenge is to talk to 10 people about your target idea. I encourage you to speak to more, but 10 is a great starting point to cover a wide array of potential reactions. Start with people you’re comfortable with, who you know would care to listen and provide great feedback. Then try to speak to at least two people who you’ve never met before.” – Pat Flynn. “Will it fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money.
As you can see, is a really easy thing to do. But probably right now, when you have just got your idea in your mind, you want to take care of it, avoiding someone to hurt its feelings (or were they yours? 🙂 ). And, of course, as you think that it is a great idea, you don’t want anyone to copy it or steal it from you.
2. DON’T BE AFRAID TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR IDEA.
I’m 46 years old. When I was young I was taught that “information it is power. You have to protect from others the knowledge you have”. But the world is changing, faster every day. Now things are totally different. Now “sharing the information you have is power”. So don’t be afraid to share.
Tell the people about your idea. An idea it doesn’t worth anything. I know a lot of people full of ideas living the same shitty 9 to 5 job every day. Because the idea is not important, the important thing is action. So don’t worry, people are not going to take action just because you tell them about an idea you just had.
A great idea is not important, the important thing is taking action Share on X
TIPS FOR “HOW TO SHARE THE IDEA?”.
Pat, in his book, suggests these tips to share the idea properly:
- Don’t give any opinions leading up to the conversion.
- Don’t sell yourself (or your idea) short.
- Help the person before you ask for your idea’s opinion.
- Let the person talk.
- Listen consciously.
3. DON’T TAKE IT PERSONAL.
Of course if you ask for an opinion, you should be ready for an answer. It could be positive or negative, but the most important thing is that the opinion was honest. Once you have the opinion, remember a very important thing “it’s an opinion about your idea, not about you“. So, the first thing you have to do is not to take it personally.
Say “thanks”, even if the opinion is bad or negative about the idea. Keep calm and ask some more questions to go deeper. Remember that if you react with anger or frustration, the conversation is over. You don’t want that. It would be great even if you could keep the contact of that person and you could ask for further feedback if you consider that the idea deserves to evolve into a prototype.
4. BE METHODICAL.
After that, I suggest you create a table with all the opinions. A very simple one. But one to allow you to analyze all the feedback in a more “logical” way. You could do something like this:
As you can see, it’s very simple. You make a list with the person, the importance of the idea from their point of view (0 it means they consider the idea really bad, 10 means they consider the idea as an incredibly good one). And then the ups (the good things they say about the idea) and the downs (the things they consider are bad or still need to improve it).
Now you have a visual place with numbers, pros, and cons. You have much more information to decide if your idea deserves to go to the next step, or maybe it is going to need some re-thinking.
5. REVIEW AND/OR ADVANCE.
After validating your business idea you have two possible paths: You either advance to the next step, or you go back and review it. I’m going to give you some tools that could help you in each situation. But before, remember that if you want to go deeper, Will it fly? could be a great investment because is a book that it’s exactly focusing on this.
A) ADVANCE TO THE NEXT STEP:
Now that you have validated your idea, your next step is Researching and Benchmarking. The market is out there, and you need to know what it is already related to your business idea. If you don’t know how to do it, stay in touch. I´ll probably write a post about it, so you could Register to the Freenancial Exposed Newsletter here to be the first to know.
B) GO BACK AND REVIEW:
If you’re going to go back, you should start better this time. I mean that you need a method, something to follow so you can be more confident that you are not missing anything important. I can help you by showing you the way I use to do it. Either for offline business or for online business ideas too. These articles are previous to this one if you want to develop a business. I show them in the right order you should read it if you are starting from zero.
- How to find a job you love: You have to know yourself
- How to start your business from scratch
- Mastering Divergent Thinking: The BEE technique
- Describe your Business idea the right way
¿Do you have any other method? ¿What’s working with you and what’s not? Tell me in the comment section or in the social networks!
And don’t forget to join our community of “freenancers”. Register to the Freenancial Exposed Newsletter here.
Luis Gil.
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