How to test your business idea without spending a dollar

I’m not sure if you are like me, but I get a tonne of ideas for a business or the next app on a daily basis.

What I certainly lack is…

1. The coding ability to build the technology (and honestly I don’t want to learn these skills).
2. $50k-$100k sitting around for a basic tech build. Yuuurp, apparently that is how much it can set you back.
3. An investor to help fund the next start-up. I don’t even have any customers or traction, so why would they even invest?

Well, before you start thinking that money is going to fall from the sky because your idea sounds cooler than Canva. Here’s my foolproof way to test your idea before you start ploughing your life-savings into the next Atlassian.

1. WRITE IT DOWN: Start off by just getting your idea on paper. It’s probably all in your head and when you articulate it to anyone it probably doesn’t make sense. Just use Google Docs, it’s free to sign-up.
2. GOOGLE IT: Find out who is doing something similar. It doesn’t mean you have to have a radical new idea, maybe yours will be better. If I go back to my point around Canva, the team there weren’t the first to create design tools. Adobe came first. But what they did do is create a fantastic product that is easy to use and has great design.
3. COMPETITORS: Note down all of your competitors. If you think there aren’t competitors to you, there are, there always will be, and I bet my bottom dollar someone is trying to build something similar.
4. BE A COPY CAT: What words and phrases do your competitors use? When you land on their website what makes you sign-up? What websites do you like? These businesses probably have designers, copywriters, marketers, sales guns who have crafted the messaging. They wouldn’t have started from scratch either.
5. BRAND NAME: Stop thinking that you need a brand name that is going to be the next Airbnb. It’ll consume too much of your time. Just get something basic up.

Now it’s time to get a landing page out there to test your idea…

1. CARRD.CO: Sign-up to Carrd.co. Here you can start your landing page. It’s free to get started and they create a domain for you. Have a play with creating your page. This is honestly, hands down the easiest landing page tool, much easier than using Squarespace or Wix.
2. MAKERPAD: If you want to be led through how to use Carrd it and other tutorials of how to build your idea without code go to this website.
3. CANVA: Sign-up to Canva. Make your landing page look prettier than just text on page. Even try out undraw.co and isometriclove.com for icons.
4. ZAPIER: You don’t want to lose people when they land on your page. Make sure you capture their email address. Link up Zapier to Google Sheets (as you have a Google account from a previous step). This will create a trigger from when someone enters their email address on your landing page and then populate this into Google Sheets. All of these tutorials can be found on Makerpad.
5. LAUNCH IT: Stop caring about how pretty it may look. Just launch it. Take1video.app and heytriangles.xyz started this way. Both businesses had over 30 sign-ups in 24 hours.

Note: I haven’t purchased anything yet or spent a single penny.

Time to get it out there…

1. Set-up your social channels. One thing I’ve learnt is that your business is so early that you don’t even know who your customers are and where they can find you. Set-up ALL the social channels and use the same handle for all of these to make it easy for the consumer to find you.
2. Again, look at competitors or companies that have cool campaigns and messaging. Start to feed your channels with similar content.
3. Content is king. Write, record, research tips and tools around your product.
4. Schedule posts on social. With a clear call-to-action to sign-up.
5. Let the leads fall from the sky.

Caveat, I can’t promise you will get 30 sign-ups (and I know it doesn’t sound like much). But at least you know you have some customers there that may buy it.

Now if you can’t be bothered to go through all of this and you would prefer to spend lifesavings then you go Glen Coco.

I’ve tried this for two of my side-businesses. It worked for me and I had 30 sign-ups in 24-hours and would love you to see if you can do the same.

Andddd there is always a plug…get involved with Take1Video.app if you want to create awesome videos with closed captions. It launches to Beta in a few weeks time. Don’t miss out on being part of it.