Startup Ideas, Meta Validation, and Linkship
When HBO decides to greenlight a show about tech startups, you know startup ideas are everywhere. We have hackathons, pitch competitions, co-working spaces, incubators, accelerator programs, and mastermind groups that fuel and support this new ecosystem. Many startup ideas seem terrible and many carry promise; some seem absurdly futuristic and some are a tired remix of ideas.
Gut feelings aside, startup ideas need validation. Entrepreneurs have to prove that enough people will use their product/service and that they can turn that traction into a profitable business.
So how do you get validation, aside from just building the business? Much has been written and said on validation. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a classic. There are also many heavily debated forms of validation: crowdfunding, user growth, market analysis, revenue, funding, acceptance into an accelerator, landing pages, email lists.
What hasn’t been talked about is Meta Validation.
Let’s explore this through a more concrete example:
The Idea
Our startup idea came out of a brainstorming session at a local coffee shop. Kyle (a developer) and myself (a designer) were practically strangers at the time, but we saw a chance to radically improve how links were bookmarked, shared, and organized amongst teams.
We were tired of weeding through emails and chat conversations for links that we had sent someone or that someone sent us. We were tired of receiving ugly spreadsheets full of links. We were tired of project delays due to missing links or bookmarks. What initially seemed like a small problems added up to significant opportunity loss and downtime. We wanted to remove this friction for ourselves and others.
Kyle had a great blueprint for how the service could work; we talked and iterated. Four hours a week to the project and a few months later, we had a brand and an Alpha product, an MVP. We named it Linkship and started using it.
The Meta Validation
As we went through the process of branding and building our company our validation took a surprising turn. We used our app to build our app. We used Linkship Alpha to build Linkship Beta.
Now, I don’t mean this in the typical sense; although we did use the Alpha as a base to expand and iterate on to arrive at the Beta. What I mean that we used Linkship to share and save links that formed our decisions and influenced the DNA of our company.
We shared and saved everything: startup metrics, videos about invention, articles about design thinking, co-working space options, and whiteboard paint products.
We formed an ethos and built a company on it.
This was tremendously valuable. Not only did Linkship work to solve our initial problems, it helped us form positive habits and fostered an environment of openness and idea exchange.
After this realization, our vision for Linkship expanded.
We now strive to bring the benefits of a brick-and-mortar library — its educational benefits and its confluence of culture, knowledge, and ideas — to the world wide web. We want to empower teams to curate digital information together so that they can be more creative, more unified, and more effective.
Since the early days our validation has become more quantitative. It’s been amazing to see our Beta Testers using it to build awesome things. Yet, we won’t forget the confidence that Meta Validation gave us. It enabled us to go out into the world and truly sell Linkship; it gave us a story.
The Takeaway
In the process of writing this blog, I re-watched a video that Kyle and I had shared with each other in the early days: PandoMonthly: Fireside Chat With Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. (It’s amazing and you should watch it, btw.) Chesky states that seed round investors always look for growth, but the metric they should be looking for is love.
If you’re struggling to come up with a good startup idea, don’t just build something people will love. Build something that you will love and that can help you accomplish the things you’re passionate about.
The only way to truly understand your target audience is to be a part of it. It’s a competitive advantage that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Meta Validation may not be the final, most important form of validation, but it can give you the confidence you need to keep building and to keep selling.
The Links
In the spirit of openness and idea exchange we’re sharing the links we shared with each other, with you:
Linkship DNA
As an aside, we’re also grateful to Product Hunt for putting more productivity tools on the map which, undoubtedly, receive Meta Validation. Regardless of whether their markets are big these tools deserve recognition.
