Your Idea Sucks Until Proven Otherwise

People only buy the solution to a problem they actually have. But, how do you know that you’re actually solving a real problem and not some personal pain point with a market of one.

What would you say to someone who comes to you with a new amazing idea that’s going to change the world?

Entertain yourself for a minute with the below conversation.

Idea’s man: “I’ve got this amazing new fitness app”

You: “Okay, what does it do?”

Idea’s man: “It tracks your body movements and vibrates to tell you to be more active”

You: “Sounds interesting, have you tested the idea?”

Idea’s man: “I’ve spoken to heaps of people, a long time personal friend who’s a personal trainer, my mum who’s been trying to lose weight and a bunch of friends who all agree it’s a great idea.”

You: “Can i see it in action?”

Idea’s man: “I’ve just ordered 100 units which should be arriving in the next 30 days, once they’re here I’ll let you know and you can give it a try.”

You: “Okay thanks.”

What in the world could go wrong?… Everything! But surprisingly this is quite common practice. The number one cause of startup failure is no product market fit. That is you’ve gone out and created a product that doesn’t fulfill a big enough need in someone’s life.

Here’s a real life personal example:

A number of year ago I set out to create a platform for connecting Advertising and Marketing Opportunities with small businesses looking for ways to promote themselves. The site would be a single source for finding; Outdoor Advertising, Digital Marketing, Print Media, and even branded Tattoos on foreheads.

Seeing the success of other marketplace platforms I spend 12 months developing what I thought would be the perfect solution to connect these two markets. The platform gradually took on more functionality and of course increased in cost, reaching $33,000 by the time it was ready for launch. Now this is actually not a massive amount for a website development project however when it’s coming out of your back-pocket its painful.

Fast forward to one week before launch day, I was searching around for a sharing widget to add to the listings posted on the site when I came across a website template which had 95% of the functionality that I’d custom built. You can imagine the frustration, however this wasn’t the biggest lesson I would learn.

In the weeks leading up to launch day and for the month after launch day I dedicated myself to contacting advertising and marketing companies from around Australia. I contacted around 350 businesses asking them if they’d like to join the platform as a way to generate more leads into their business. Tough slog, but I succeeded in getting a 20% conversion rate meaning I had 70 business registered on the site — although not all were paying to be there.

So you ask what was the lesson I learnt, well I learnt the hard way the importance of reaching product market fit before launching anything, before engaging a developer, designer, or anyone in between who would create give the idea any kind sign of life (MVP). In hindsight what I should have done is taken the same list of 350 advertising and marketing companies and asked them something along the lines of the below:

What I should have been asking:

• What are your biggest challenges?
• How does that challenge affect your business?
• If there was a solution to that challenge what would that mean to you?
• What would the ideal solution look like?
• Where would you find it?
• If a solution were available today, would you buy it?
• Can i contact you for further research?

Then, after collecting all the response I should have gone out and created a super simple MVP then gone back and spoken to the same people to ask them:

• Does this solution solve your challenge?
• What do you like about it?
• What do you dislike about it?
• What would you add to it?
• Who else is it for?
• How much would you pay?

Going through the above process might have meant that I could have potentially spent only one month of my personal time determining whether the idea was worth pursuing and $0 (assuming you’re on an unlimited calls/text mobile plan), a total saving of 12 months and $33,000.

Just think, how many ideas could you test in this way?

As a guide, here are some characteristics of good problems to solve:

• Real — It should be an actual problem that more than just you are experiencing
• Focused — It should be specific enough that you can clearly articulate what the problem is and whose problem is it (this will make creating a solution far easier as well)
• Big — A lot of money will be spent on it (think of the lifetime cost of not solving the problem)
• Difficult — Not everyone can solve it (its not something people have found easy to solve hence the reason why it is still a problem)
• Obvious — Easy to define (you know those ideas that you see and think to yourself, “Of course that makes so much sense, why didn’t I think of that”)
• Complete — The problem is 100% solved, not 80% (If it doesn’t completely solve the problem, well you just haven’t actually solved the problem have you)
• Worsening — Gets worse over time, not better (If nothing is done about the problem it could get worse)

So the moral of the story is — your idea sucks until you prove otherwise and you prove it doesn’t suck by getting real people as close to your target market to give you feedback throughout the entire journey of your idea.

From the first time you think of the problem your going to solve and every step on the way to building the actual end-customer facing output. Involve real people, get feedback and communicate. Trust me you will save yourself a world of heartache.

If you’re ready to learn the exact steps to building something people really want, check out this course that I’ve created and a bunch of marketing resources to help you along the way.

Thanks for reading. Spread the word by clapping or recommending to help others avoid early startup failure, hold down the 👏 to say thanks.

Lenny Manor
Startup Growth Trainer