Top 10 Tips for Testing Your Business Idea

For less money than your weekly shop

This is a golden age for entrepreneurs.

Never before has it been so cheap and quick to set up a business. Social media has completely changed the way we interact with our customers and prospects and we can start having conversations and engaging with a user group long before we even have a product to sell, or even know what it is we want to sell. This is particularly good news for mums looking to find more flexible work.

In the online world, geographic boundaries don’t exist and your customers can be engaging with your brand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s a flexible worker’s dream.

Step back to the time of our parents. The options for working mums were more limited. You could get part-time hours at your place of work, or start a business. Passive income streams were around (there were plenty of landlords and property portfolio owners back then) but today, this line of work has become an industry in itself. A quick google of “passive income” reveals dozens of websites offering ideas, coaching and courses on how to create money whilst you sleep. The irony indeed.

My parents wanted to have a flexible work life to be around the kids, so they set up their own business. In those days, it meant starting with finding a premises, refurbishments, buying stock, hiring staff, setting up back office processes, branding, marketing and sales, and all before any customer had set foot in the store. The risk was far greater and the financial outlay at the start must have given them sleepless nights. My mother was the driving force behind setting up the business and worked all through her pregnancy with me. Time off wasn’t a luxury so I was a regular accessory at the shop. I credit them with their boldness and self-belief compared with many of us entrepreneurs today, who actually spend a lot of time at our computer screens at home. In today’s world we can be interacting with customers yet never meet any of them face-to-face. We don’t have to put through huge financial outlays, we don’t have to leave our house, and we can test a business idea quickly before iterating or moving onto something different — all without spending more than the weekly shop.

What do we want to test?

In today’s world, we have the luxury of being able to test our business idea before we invest the kids’ university fund. In any test for a business idea, there are two key objectives:

• Prove there are customers out there who are willing to pay for your product or service
• Find out as quickly and cheaply as possible if it’s a go-er or a dead duck

So, what are you waiting for? Get testing your business idea with the top 10 below:

1. Get the right mindset

This is an experiment. Remember in chemistry at school, the elements were set up, the equipment was ready, you set the wheels in motion and then stood back and waited. If it didn’t work, you changed one thing — an element or a piece of equipment and tried again. Then again and again. This is what we are doing here except it’s even better as you can ask your prospective customers for feedback, to set you in the right direction. It’s an iterative exploration of possibilities, not the proposition of a yes/no question. Be curious and inquisitive.

2. Summarise your idea

Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what it is you are looking to do — that will iterate over time. Pick one idea to start with — again, like a hypothesis in science. You need to have a clear starting point of what you are going to test, and then allow the idea to be taken on the journey of feedback and adjustment. I strongly recommend using the Lean StartUp Canvas from the book Running Lean by Ash Maurya (https://ashmaurya.com/). It will take 20 minutes to complete and will get you to sketch out what the idea is, what problem it will solve, who and where your target customers are and a finger-in-the-air idea of where the money will come from. Don’t get hung up on the product/ thing you are going to sell. The most important element is what problem are you going to solve?

3. Build out a profile of your Prospective Customers

Who are they? Where do they hang out? Start to really get a feel for your customers so you can understand the challenges they face. What lifestyle do they have? What do they spend their money on? What websites/ papers/ magazines do they read? What brands do they like? And build a picture in a way that makes sense to your product/ service — what values do they have? What attitudes and behaviours do they have?

Lurk around blogs, FB pages to get an understanding of what they struggle with and their top issues.

4. Engage and Probe

This is the bit we all skip. I’m sure there’s a whole piece on the human psychology of why we drag our heels about speaking to people direct but it really is the only way to truly understand the problem you are proposing to solve. So track down your prospective customers and start asking questions. A few things to avoid:

• don’t tell them what your product/ service is during any point of the conversation — they will adjust their answers to be nice and err on the side of optimism;
• don’t ask them if they would use or buy your product — answering that question is a completely different mental process than actually making a purchase so they cannot possibly answer accurately;
• don’t ask them how much they would pay for a service like yours — again, they can’t truthfully say because it’s too abstract a question compared with the reality of handing over money.

So, what do you do? Ask lots of probing questions about the issue that you are going to solve. One key question is “how are you dealing with this issue today?” If they are doing nothing, it’s not important enough to them to be bothered about it. If they are doing something that doesn’t work, or have tried several things, then you know there is an appetite for a solution, and you’re on the money. Get curious and inquisitive and keep exploring the issue and why it is important for them.

5. Develop an offer

Following your investigative efforts, your offer will be more defined. It may be completely re-written but that’s okay — you’re closer to understanding what your customers need. So build out what it is you are going to offer (again, remembering this is still a hypothesis):

• How does it bring more love, money, acceptance, free time?
• How does it lessen conflict, stress, hassle and uncertainty?
• What core benefit is there? Make this relate to emotional needs, not practical ones. How are you going to improve someone’s life?
• Make your solution different and better — google search to find out what is already out there and check out the ads that turn up in the search. How are these worded and what benefits are they selling?

6. Do a bit of marketing sizing

You don’t need millions of customers — you just need enough. What else is on the market? How many prospects are out there dealing with the problem you are going to solve? How are they positioning in the market versus how you are going to position in the market? How are they connecting with their customers and how successful is it? Sign up to their email lists to get an idea of how they engage.

Don’t be put off if there are already companies in your field — take it as a good sign — there is obviously a need for this type of service.

7. Get Your Product Under Your Customer’s Nose

It’s really important to do this as soon as possible. 60% ready is enough — it will still be valuable in terms of feedback. This doesn’t have to be the actual product if it’s a tangible item. We just want customers to go through the mental process of purchase, so think how best to do this at low cost:

Set up a one-page sales site (see Lead Pages/ Instapage/ Unbounce/ Wix) and market to your community (via FB groups, blogs, etc). You are effectively offering pre-sales at this stage. Take payment if comfortable doing so (and you can refund them if you are not able to fulfill), or get them to “Register their interest” which allows you to collect email addresses (although the latter is not necessarily an indicator that they would pay but collecting emails is a great way of generating sales leads)

Or, if it’s a product or consumable , then get amongst your target customer and see if it will sell — get standing on the street corner and sell your wares. If customers are not buying, ask them why.

8. Take Stock of the Results

Did you get sign ups/ purchases? If not, can you find out why by asking your target market? What can you tweak to adjust the process? Are you confident it was your target market looking at your web page/ product? What would have made them engage?

Adjust the approach and tweak as necessary.

9. Fail Fast and Make Changes

It is highly unlikely you will hit the jackpot first time. There are lots of stories of well known businesses that started off as something completely different. In entrepreneur-land, this is known as a “pivot.” Twitter started off as Odeo, a network where people could find and subscribe to podcasts; Pinterest started off as Tote, a retailer curator; Groupon started off life as a consumer activism site, The Point. Your original idea is a hypothesis — don’t be attached to it. Listen carefully to your target customer group and make updates as you learn about what they need.

10. Don’t expect overnight results

Persevere. The journey to success is like sailing a boat — you have to keep adjusting course in order to get to your destination. It will be frustrating and agonising at times, but keep in the mindset of experimentation. Remind yourself why you are embarking on this journey — for a more flexible work life for the children, for adventure, to learn new things, to be more financially secure. It’s really hard work setting up a viable business — as long as you stay close to your customer’s wants and needs, you will find the product that works for them.

Further resources & inspiration:

• Lean Startup — Eric Ries
• Running Lean — Ash Maurya
• The $100 Startup — Chris Guillebeau

Julie Morgan is a coach and business consultant. She is the founder of www.workingmums.club, providing support and coaching to ambitious mums, looking to create a great work life.

Download the free “How Balanced Is Your Life?” Quiz at www.workingmums.club.