lean-startup, customer-developmentWhat are the steps you take to validate your product, how do you know if you are solving an actual problem that your customers are suffering from?
What startups told me about their product validation process? I talked to a number of startups, who went through product validation process. It was clear after the discussion that startups have problems validating products due to four reasons:
Setting up problem definition.
Identifying early customers.
My research show that startups can articulate their problem statement but they cannot define exactly who are their customers and who are not. Startups are challenged to find the first ten early adopters to interview because of their limited capabilities in marketing.
The biggest challenge all startups shared, is building up objective interview questions, scheduling interviews, recording and transcript interviews, then getting the correct feedback.
Product validation and “solving customer problems” consists of a wide spectrum of approaches, which depends on your approach to product innovation, the product and the problem that you are trying to solve. For better insight into effective product validation, you may want to focus on certain industries (food?), product types (held-held devices?) and/or problem types (transportation?).
Here are some example perspectives:
You solve a known problem with known solutions. Some products come from easy to observe and measure customer problems. For example, building a “better” car by improving the braking system.
You solve a known problem with many possible, not well-defined solutions. Hand-held vacuums, ergonomic chairs, air bags. These products compete with existing products in new ways.
You solve a problem people didn’t know they had. Think of smartphones and fax machines. Some products, when they hit the market, either don’t solve a particular problem or started off by solving a different problem than the product was originally intended to solve.
Also, consider products that target “entertainment,” “life satisfaction” or other problems with many poorly defined attributes. These usually carry elements from the entire spectrum. For example, chewing gum can help “strengthen teeth” but doesn’t really solve a problem (in fact, some cause problems). Organic farming is more expensive and less efficient than other kinds of modern farming - and it’s difficult to clearly measure the consumer “problem” it solves: some people are concerned by farm chemicals, some don’t like big corporate farms, some just want to feel like they are eating healthier versions of the same food, some don’t approve of GMO technology, etc.
Since the approaches and effectiveness for different products and companies is so varied, it seems to me that it would be more useful to you to narrow the question down, so that it is easier to see the merits and drawbacks of different approaches.
Interviews are marketing-political-bigcorp bullshit.
To validate an idea in a startup context, there aren’t many other choices than:
If your idea needs a lot of work to get something useful, then build a landing page “as if” the product was actually there, and sell the product. You’ll tell customers later that it’s not ready yet.
Your goal is to validate your idea in the wild and for real, by asking people for money. Not by conducting complicated and costly interviews where people always lie, whether they realize it or not.
Sources: Paul Graham, Joel Spolsky, and every successful project out there that once was a startup.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.