Validating your business idea.

We all have been there. You are walking and suddenly you have a business idea. You tell your friend and he/she thinks is good. And you go for it. Is it really a good idea? Is it really worth it? Is it something people need? Would people pay for it? How much would people pay for it? These are just a few questions that you want to have in mind in order to validate your idea.

So… How can we validate a business idea?
First, we need to understand what we want to do and have a brainstorm (having in mind that we are satisfying a need). Here you will try to be as most clear and simple as possible. Once you have the idea, go where your possible customer is. Literally! If you are creating an app to deliver groceries, you must go to the grocery store and talk to random people there. These people would be your potential customers. Talk to them. Ask them. Make them imagine what you are talking about with questions like “what if…”
What if you have an online service which supplies or satisfies the need of coming to the store? What substitute will work for you? What else would satisfy your need? Imagine yourself… and listen carefully. In this process, you are understating your market and validating your business idea. Don’t try to sell something, or convince people. In this step, you must validate the fact that you have a product or service that people actually want. Again, listen carefully if the random conversation turns out to be successful, you might just get the ideas you needed to finish developing your product. The people you are talking will give you their own opinion and what they believe that could make your product unique and successful. And if the random conversation is successful, the same people will be designing the product. They would say what would be cool, and give you ideas. You will be surprised of what people come up with. Maybe the whole idea shifts and transform into another.

Second, once you have your idea almost clear, create a pitch. In this process, it is important to think of what it is which makes you better and unique. Be realistic! Have in mind if what you are doing, will be easily substituted by another good or service. Once you create the pitch, now you will try to talk to people in order to have people interested. In the first step, the goal was to have the idea clear. In this step, the goal is to have the business idea ready and to get people excited about it. If people are getting excited and willing to open their wallets to open their wallets, to pay you for what you area talking about, then you are up to something. And you have a business idea.

And last, go for it. Just do something. The successful entrepreneurs that we study as college students are mostly dropouts(Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jay-Z and Mark Zuckerberg, to mention a few). They have learned from the process of doing it, instead of reading a book.
Be careful to hold to one idea as “the best one”, if it fails, work on it and learn. But never, stop creating.