SBX 21: How To Validate Your Business Idea




The Small Business Express Podcast show

Summary: Has anyone ever told you, “you’re so great at (insert skill), you should start a business!”<br> These words, though innocent, have paved the road to more failed business ventures than any recession, depression or economic downturn ever has.<br> Encouragement from friends and family is great, but before you start a business, you have to dive a lot deeper than that if you want to know if your great idea has a chance at business success.<br> Most of us business owners fall in love with our business ideas.  You get an idea, fall in love with it and go and start a business.  You assume everyone will have the same excitement for your business idea as you do.  You’re wrong.<br> Everyone is different and everyone has different tastes.  That’s why some people drive a Mercedes and some people ride a scooter, we all have different tastes and are motivated by different things (I would love to zip around on a scooter, but no interest in driving a Mercedes).  That’s why taking the time to test and validate your business idea before you spend your life savings is so important.<br> For a few hundred dollars and a few dozen hours of your time, you can get a pretty good idea of what people think about your idea and if it’s something worth pursuing.  So why do most people ignore this step?  I think first, because they aren’t sure exactly how to test their idea properly, and secondly, they are in love with their idea and are afraid to expose it to criticism.  Big mistake.<br> Before you go all in, bet the farm and jump in with both feet, take some time to make sure there is interest in what you think the world will fall in love with.<br> Listen and Learn…<br> <br> * How dreaming is great, but not testing is bad.  Very bad<br> * How to find the right audience to test your idea with<br> * How to get people to take action in validating your business idea<br> * How to leverage technology and existing resources to test your idea<br> * What actions people need to take in order to get true validation<br> * Why crafting the right offer is so important when validating your idea<br> * How to get people excited about your idea<br> <br> Action Steps from this episode:<br> <br> * <br> Assemble you audience. Before you start any kind of testing you want to be sure that you are testing your ideas with the type of person that will be your customer. It’s a big waste of time if you try and pitch your idea to a demographic that isn’t interested. Spend the time doing your research so you have a pretty clear idea of who will want to buy your product or service<br> <br> * <br> Decide how you are going to pre-sell your idea. Are you going to ask ask people to sign up for an email list, make some sort of pre-order action or maybe fill out a contact form for more information. Decide what the mechanism is going to be to validate your idea.<br> <br> * <br> So you have the audience, the plan, now you have to craft the offer and call to action to actually get people to take the action you want. Your offer has to be interesting and there has to be a clear call to action or else it’s unlikely they will take any. Here is where you will be able to get the data to see if your idea has legs<br> <br> <br> Links and Resources:<br> <br> * <br> The story Mike told about a <a title="Business in the burgle" href="http://www.businessintheburgle.com/roseburg-beer-club-marketing/" target="_blank">local bar that pre-sold beer mugs</a> (that came with a lot of free beer!) in exchange for helping to fund the construction of the bar.<br> <br> * <br> <a title="aytm" href="http://aytm.com/" target="_blank">We spoke about this company</a> in the podcast that can provide targeted survey participants to test out your idea.<br> <br> * <br> I think we forgot to mention this in the podcast, but <a title="Google" href="https://www.google."></a>