How to validate any startup or business idea with three simple – but effective – questions

First post of a series of entrepreneur-related articles. Follow for more!

In order to have a successful business, you need to have an extremely original idea…Right?

One of those “one in a million” concepts we end up hearing about on Techcrunch and TEDtalks.

You have to “disrupt” an industry. Or create it.

You have to know how to apply lean methodologies and growth hacks faster, better and stronger than anyone else out there.

You need to “hustle” or any other marketing jargon that´s being used as you read this article.

At least that’s what (most) media tells us.

However…

If you think of Spotify, Netflix, Slack, or any other company from the elite “Unicorn” club (companies valued at over 1 billion dollars), most of us believe they “reinvented / disrupted / created the ________ industry”.

Did they really?

Take out all the “glamour” usually associated to these companies, and objectively look at what they really did.

We could summarize their success in a pretty simple sentence: they greatly improved the way people get to the value of an existing product or service”.

I know it may sound extremely simplistic (it probably is), and I do not intend to undermine the hard and smart work it took them to get there.

However, in the end, that´s pretty much it.

They showed the world there was a better way.

They did not “change” the music or TV industries as we see and hear content the same way we used to.

They simply made it a lot easier for their users to use and, by doing so, ended up having extremely successful businesses.

Media (especially if you´re a lean startup / growth hacker fan) usually focus on tech related ideas, but what Netflix and Spotify did with technology can be applied on more “traditional” industries.

Take Chupa-Chups, for example, the creator of lollipops.

They literally state this on their website:

“Up until the late 1950s, sweets were different shapes and colours. But children, being children, would pop them in and out of their mouths regularly to examine them, to talk to friends, to hide them from parents or to put them in their pockets for later. This meant that kids and sweets were a messy mix. Suddenly it struck Enric Bernat, the founder of Chupa-Chups: the world needed a product that “would be like eating a sweet with a fork”!, and so he created a universally appealing sweet that would make kids and parents happy.”

Simple problem, simple solution. Yet again, a remarkably successful business.

So what does all of this has to do with having a successful business idea?

Its simple: instead of dumping any idea that isn´t “The New Facebook”, take a minute to think on those simple ideas we come up with when riding the underground or waiting for our morning coffee.

Any idea that can make your life (or your friends) easier has the potential to become a profitable business.

Anything that causes you “pain” or makes you feel “uncomfortable” might have an underlying business opportunity.Also, these ideas that make our lives easier by improving the way things work today (despite how dumb they may initially sound), are actually the ones that are much more likely to happen.

Eric Ries explains this in a much more detailed and scientifically proven way in their Lean Startup Series (along with many other authors), and Sean Ellis has pioneered a similar but complementing movement with “Growth Hacking”.

Yet, in the end, the best way to spot if there is a problem that might need solving (or better solving) is by giving yourself a minute to address everyday situations as if you wanted to fix them.

In a marketers jargon, the first step to start addressing the “problem / solution fit” process is by giving yourself a minute to think.

How exactly should you think of this problems?

Next time you are doing an everyday task and think “this is wrong / annoying” or “this sucks, what should happen / how it should be made is ________”, stop and think.

Seriously. Stop. And. Think.

You never know if you could have found a potential business idea.

Now before you start thinking everything “uncomfortable” that happens to you has business potential (many times, it wont), think of three simple things:

1. Would it be simple FOR YOU to try it?

Ideas that pop to your mind when doing everyday tasks are usually much simpler to execute (unless you´re a NASA astronaut or some sort of secret agent).

Could there be a new or better way to solve this situation you just came across? Would I be able to find a “quick fix” to it?

Think of Chupa Chups. Could you have been able to try to “stick a stick” on a candy?

If the answer is yes, it´s much more probable that you take action and decide to act upon it.

Most people get stuck on grandiose ideas (again, “The Next Better Facebook”) that are so unrealistic we end up using them to impress friends on how clever we are over beers, rather than on actually researching if they would be able to have a simple solution to it.

In other words, creating a “Minimum Viable Product” should take a very short amount of your time and /or resources.

Could you execute your idea by yourself before spending a dime? Would you have been able to put a stick on a candy?

2. Would you be willing share it with your friends & family?

There´s something about billion dollar ideas that makes you believe everyone is going to steal it.

You become extremely jealous of it, and avoid telling anyone anything until you get the resources you need to create the next big thing without anyone “stealing” it. Bad call. Terribly dumb call.

Again, it would be much smarter to run your idea through a very simple test: do my friends think this problem exists? Do they share my opinion? How would they solve it? Can I talk to them about it?

If your answer was yes, then go ahead and do so. Ask them.

They would be a very valuable first filter to see if they agree that the problem you spotted actually exists (aka: idea validation).

Even if you don´t have the idea yet, simply paying attention to casual conversations around the coffee table could actually help you come up with one. You just need to pay attention to recurring problems your friends or coworkers have, or present them the problem you identified as a casual conversation.

If they show no interest or look at you as if you just brain farted, then the problem you spotted might not be as usual or painful as you think.

If they say “I hate when this happens” and then go on to add a couple of additional problems and inconveniences they´ve spotted, plus provide their opinions on how it should be solved, you might be onto something.

Most people will think of this as a casual conversation rather than start drafting a business model.

For you, on the other hand, will mean saving a lot of time, effort and money to determine if its worth it before spending a penny.

Do people around you share the same pain point? Do they find your solution useful? Have they thought of other solutions in the process? Would parents pay twice as much for the same candy only because it has a stick attached to it?

3. Am I passionate enough about this problem that I would turn it into my life project?

99,99% of people in the world work because they have to, not because they love it.

Actually, statistics and surveys prove that almost 70% of people hate their job.

So if the problem you spotted (and the solution you came up with), have a good feel, stop. And think. Again. And think in an even deeper way than you did when finding the problem.

If you feel like “someone should do something about it”, yet are unsure if that someone should be you, do not act on it. Seriously. Don´t.

Although passion is not a pre-requisite to starting up a company, being an entrepreneur is an extremely tough path to make it with a half hearted conviction.

This question will not only save you time and money, but will help you avoid feeling miserable for abandoning everything for something that “didn´t really excite you that much” in the first place.

Additionally, your “social validation” experiment should have given you a pretty strong feeling on how passionate your friends feel about the problem, which can be a simple yet powerful way to gauge your potential market passion for the product (and their willingness to talk to other people about your solution).

It takes a lot of courage to create a solution, and the path will feel like hell through most of the way, so be sure that you are convinced you´re comfortable enough with it.

So…What should you do next?

If you´ve gone through the simple three-question process I just defined and are comfortable with the answers, then there is only one thing left to do.

As Nolan Bushnell said it:

“The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

So the next time you´re somewhere and you think “this could be done better if it was done like this”, please do take more than a minute to think about it.

Could there be a business opportunity on that simple idea? Are you ready to execute it? And, more importantly…How do people around you feel about it?