business-plan, idea, market-researchHow do people validate and valuate ideas and opportunities in the software / online business space?
I have the tendency to come up with new ideas every now and then. I usually write those thoughts down and try to figure out which ones should be pursued and which ones discarded.
I usually try to fill in a Business Model Canvas for these to figure out bigger picture, but am lacking a way to compare ideas against each others.
In terms of validating ideas, its considered good idea build simple landing page and drive traffic to it to see if there is any initial interest in the product. This can be daunting as its easy for people to leave email address, but to pay for product which doesn’t exist yet its very different story.
How should ideas be tested, validated and from there, compared together?
There are a couple of ways one could validate ideas:
Keyword Research: especially for aspirin products (i.e. products solving a real pain vs. vitamin products that a nice to have) people tend to search online for a solution. For example Google offers the Keyword Planner with which one can determine the approximate demand for keywords.
Paid Advertising: a shortcut method to keyword research can be paid advertising for keywords. With that you get pretty exact numbers about the demand for your keywords.
Qualitative Research: another approach is to analyze the target market of a respective idea. Try to find the waterholes where potential customers meet online (e.g. online forums, mailing lists) and see which problems they discuss.
Disclaimer: These are just a few methods to qualify an idea and I consider my answer is by no means canonical.
Landing page idea seems good , you should create landing page and put all description and details about product. Give inquiry form with product instead of any payment option.
By inquiry , you will be able to see people interest in product and then if you feel that many people wants that product then at later stage you can integrate payment system so any one can buy product online.
But this idea is also require web development, search engine optimization and marketing of that web/landing page. so little bit time taking process but effective way to reach fastest to audience.
One really great book I read on validating business ideas is Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. This book has 24 steps on how to validate your idea, and it saved me A BUNCH of time as I did not waste my time and money building something people did not want first. It essentially is a forward to Eric Ries Lean Startup book on all the research you need to do to validate your idea BEFORE you even think about building and iterating.
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