The one and only thing you should do to validate your idea is...

Pre-sell the solution.

TAKE MONEY. Real actual money.

The only way to tell if something is viable is to take money from people who will buy it.

Don't be fooled by people who say you can't do this. Apple does this all the time. The people you are looking for are called "early adopters".

This is how I validated my business (www.referralriver.com)

I talked to my target market (people I thought I could help and who I also thought could buy or actually had money to buy). At the end of the conversation I asked if they would pre-purchase the solution before it was made.

Many didn't but some did. After I had enough people that purchased I could determine that yes this is a valid idea and worth pursuing.

My general rule: Pre-sell to at least 10 people. If your solution/service/ or product has a lifetime value (LTV) of less than $1,000 then you need more than 10 pre-sales to validate. I happen to be in software so that's a subscription model so for that industry any solution that costs less than $50 per month per user is very difficult to build and be successful at, so a minimum of 10 pre-sales of at least $50 per month per user would validate an idea for me.

Before finding this one I went through maybe 10 other ideas and decided not to pursue them (mostly because no one would pay for the solution before it was built!)

Don't ask "hey would this be useful?" or "would you pay for this if it existed?"

Ask for the sale now.

If people don't pre-purchase this "idea"...then it's crap. Sorry, but guess what?! That's great news. You get to move on instead of wasting your time, money, and resources building something that no one will buy.

If you want to know more, or if you find this useful, book a time with me. Happy to help.

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