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One of the first ways of the idea of validation I'm going to talk about is doing it in person and in
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real life.
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Are you I'm not online? And this is the absolute easiest way of validating your idea or your product and it's
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basically just talking to somebody about it.
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Now the important thing is that you have to get good feedback and you have to listen to that feedback.
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You have to find somebody in your life who is not afraid of telling you that your idea is absolutely
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crap.
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Of course they can be wrong.
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You have those people who just tell you that you're no good at anything.
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But there are also people who will give you balanced critical opinions and those are the most valuable
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people you can find.
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Now the thing about now the thing about humans is that we don't take criticism very well.
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One of the things that a lot of founders can get stuck in is this sort of idea chasm when they are so
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vested in this brilliant idea that's going to be the next unicorn or the next Facebook,
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they cannot accept any sort of criticism.
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And I've seen this so often when people come to me for advice on their idea or the company that they're
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starting. Now I often try to give a balanced feedback
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you know if there's something that's really glaringly obvious that makes their idea completely unfeasible
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I will tell them about it. And you see the way that different people react to that kind of feedback. Some
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people--
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Now some people will argue back and say yeah but there's this and that which is good that means they're thinking
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about it.
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But then there's other people who will just completely not accept any sort of criticism of their idea.
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And this is what you must guard against.
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Look to see if you are doing this in the business or app idea that you're pursuing because it could
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potentially cost you years in time and lots of money.
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So listen to critical feedback, evaluate it to see if it's valid.
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Now this is not to say that if you have a brilliant idea and everybody shoots you down that you should
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give up on it because there's a lot of ideas that are open markets that we never really thought about. Because
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UBER started initially targeting the luxury car market, It was absolutely tiny. And nobody, VCs or angels
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investors could actually see it going anywhere and definitely you know a lot of people missed out on
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a great opportunity to invest because they couldn't see it getting this much traction and ending up
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where they are now.
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And similarly with AirBnB there were a lot of people who were like, "why would you want strangers
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in your house?
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Surely they're just going to rape and murder you.
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This is totally never going to turn out well."
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And yet you know right now AirBnB has a huge percentage of the private short term rental market cap.
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So it's not to say that you should let the opinions of others determine how you're going to go forward
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but it's important to absorb some of the criticisms so that it can guide your decision making or that
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you can address it
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when you do launch. So don't be stuck in your own idea
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chasm. Listen to people's feedback and opinions.
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So this is essentially a boiled down approach of how you can go about doing this from today
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essentially if you already have an idea. So it's called the Starbucks approach and it's basically where
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you just walk into Starbucks and chat to a strangers. So find somebody who's sitting alone at the table
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and either offer to buy them a muffin or offer to buy them a coffee. And you ask them about your brother's
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app idea or your brother's startup idea. And this is very important because if you tell a stranger or
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even you know somebody know that you have this great idea,
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people don't tend to want to disappoint other people. They will refrain from giving
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you know the harshest of criticisms because they care about how you feel. And as humans we are all kind
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of empathetic in that way.
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So by saying that it's your friend or your brother's idea and you're just doing a little bit of you
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know market validation, then it removes them having to be nice about it. And you don't want them to just
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tell you "Yeah it's great.
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Well done."
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You know that's not what you want at all.
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You want them to identify
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all of the things that could go wrong with your idea and to bring your attention to things that you
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haven't really thought about.
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And step 3 is of course asking them what do they think about this idea,
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do they think it's going to work?
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If not why if yes why etc.
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Now this approach is going to cost you maximum £10 or $15. So for the price of two coffees and maybe
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30 minutes of your time
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you could potentially be saving yourself months of hard work of toil and a lot of investment of your
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resources that will go down the drain because of something that you know you haven't thought about or
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because it was actually a terrible idea to begin with.
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So whenever I tell people this, there's always somebody who asked me you know "should I ask them for an
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NDA which is a non-disclosure agreement?" It's essentially sort of loosely legal binding document that prohibits
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the person from sharing details of your idea with anybody else.
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And my answer is always in phatic clean no.
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And the reason for that is because if you've ever built a company if you've ever built anything worthwhile,
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you know that it takes so much more than just the idea. You know a lot of people can have ideas but the
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ones who become found and the ones who become successful are always the people who take action.
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And I can tell you that there's not a lot of people who take action in this world.
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And also if it is a good idea that you've got, you can bet that right now across the world five other
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people at least five other people will have had the same idea.
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There is nothing unique about our brain.
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There is only something unique about what we choose to take action on and whether if we do so.
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So don't worry about NDAs, don't worry about people stealing your idea.
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It is so much more valuable getting that feedback getting information from people maybe with domain
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knowledge or getting criticisms about your idea that you can address.
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So this is the approach that is probably the cheapest and the least time consuming and it allows you
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to gauge firsthand at people's reactions and people's feedback.
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And I can honestly say that this is probably one of the best ways of validating your idea.
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Now I know that not everybody is comfortable with the idea of going up to a stranger and you know exposing
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your your deepest darkest secrets in the form of your app idea or your startup idea.
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But just try it once or twice because starting a startup is all about the hustle,
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it's all about you know getting out there and getting people to know about what it is that you do or
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how it is that you're helping people.
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So if you can't bring yourself to discuss your idea with a stranger for 30 minutes in Starbucks you
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know there's really minimal risks here.
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The worst thing that can happen is that they'll say no.
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And then you move onto the next person and nobody's going to die.
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Nothing's going to happen.
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So just as a challenge for those you guys who are listening right now and you have an app idea or
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you have a startup idea, go out there grab a coffee buy somebody else a coffee see what they think about
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it and practice this way of idea of validation.