Is Your Big Idea the Next Big Thing?
Here’s an easy way to find out.
Think your startup idea might be a real moneymaker? There are some great ways to find out before you actually invest in a build.
First things first: Google it
A search engine is the first place to go with your idea. Find several ways people might search for what you want to offer, and see if something similar is already out there. Find out whether people actually like what’s already available or if it’s failing to meet their needs.
Once you’re fairly certain that you have a relatively unique idea (or feel confident that you can do something better than the guys who are already doing it), it’s time to start vetting the idea with potential users.
Test your idea
Build a simple “coming soon” page that gives a brief synopsis of your idea. Open a Google Adwords account to drive people to it, and see if you can find some combination of an ad headline, ad copy and landing page content that gets people to give you their email addresses.
Talk to those people, along with your friends and family, and see if they’d use your product. Find other ways (Meetups, forums, Twitter…) to connect with people who might pay for your product or service, and talk to them about it too.
If they like it, make it
Once you’ve built a long list of people who like your idea, you’ll need to build a rough and dirty prototype. Once you build it, you’ll need to take it back to the people you’ve been talking to and have them try it.
If they still like it, make more
Once you’ve got people excited about a rough version of your product, it’s time to make a (minimalist) version that’s polished enough to sell — your “minimum viable product” or MVP. An MVP is the smallest implementation of the idea that people will pay for (or use a lot if you plan on an ad revenue model).
And don’t give up
If at any of the above phases, you don’t get strong positive responses from people, you’ll need to make changes and repeat that step until you do.
It takes a decent idea, and a lot of hard work and, yes, cash to bring a new idea to life. Often the one thing that separates success from failure is your will and ability to stay the course and try one more thing.
This article is based on one of my Quora answers. If you dig it and want more, you can find me here.
