Market Validation: What is it and How to Ensure it
In the world of entrepreneurship its easy to get caught up in the media portrayal of startup life: there’s the big guys- the Unicorn startups like Uber, Airbnb, Brex, etc. who made it and then there’s everybody else. Life must have been perfect for these successes right? They must have known exactly what to build, how to shape their customer base and achieve product market fit… right?
The startup successes, big or small we hope to emulate today all started out as struggling entrepreneurs trying to figure out the next day, week and month of their business. In Venture Forward: Lessons from Leaders, I share the stories of the struggles and successes of startups of all shapes and sizes in the hope that we can all learn from the pathways they took to #ventureforward.
“The early adopters have so much information about what’s working and not working with your product… In these conversations they begin to tell you things that you have no idea were problems. Like ‘We can’t use your calendar.’ And I watched them try and use our interface… and it was a trainwreck.”
This trainwreck was a startup a year and a half in since inception that was in the middle of the famous YCombinator accelerator program.
This was a startup that had convinced YCombinator founder Paul Graham to schedule a last minute interview for the program as the company was on its last legs.
This was a startup that bootstrapped and survived by hand-making boxes of cereal called Obama O’s and Capn’ McCains for $40 a limited edition box during the 2008 Presidential Election, and it was this story alone of grit and perseverance that got them accepted into the accelerator program.
The struggling startup was the Unicorn we know today as AirBnB.
They had a website and a user base that was chugging along with mediocre growth, and shoddy photos of property listings shot by users.
“You know, it’s ok to do things early that don’t scale,” Paul Graham told the team in one of their advisory sessions. This short quip would ultimately change the course and projection of the company.
In this article series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, Venture Forward: Lessons from Leaders. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you enjoyed it and want to connect you can reach me here via email at jkraus@prepare4vc.com or connect with me on social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter. Also, you can also find my book on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZLGGT6L
If you’re interested in learning more about the market validation process, you’ll love Chapter 3 of Venture Forward, “Get out there and talk… and listen!” where I discuss it further.
