Startups—especially when created by genuine entrepreneurs and not “just” emerging business owners—are dreamt up by a collection of ideas. You might think your idea is a great one, but is it really? And if so, is it kicking off at the right time, in the right place, targeting the right people and with the right financing? Luckily, there’s a “test” you can use to see if your idea is meaty enough to make it before you over-invest time and money into a dud. Just like you need to eat lean in order to optimize your body, you also need to embrace “lean” when it comes to your startup.
David Teten, a venture capitalist, always looks at potential startups to invest in with the idea that they need to pass “the test” first. He utilizes a number of so-called “experiments” while simultaneously encouraging entrepreneurs to be creative in their endeavors. The first test is to simply blog about your idea and see what the response is. It’s an easy, free, fast way to get customized and quantitative/qualitative unbiased feedback.
Here are a few other of Teten’s favorite experiments:
1. Offer surveys with a lure
If you really want to know what people think about your idea, whether it’s target audiences or your fellow entrepreneurs, offer a survey with both in-kind and monetary prizes. This can be a focus group handled by a professional company or a SurveyMonkey quiz you put together yourself.
2. Use Quora to drive discussions
You can actually use just about any Q&A site (Reddit’s another option), but it’s best if you can find a site designed just for your industry. This is where narrative discussions can take place and you can ask followup questions more easily. Not getting any nibbles on various sites? That in itself it telling you there’s a problem.
3. Watch your site usage
Once you have a website up, even if it’s a soft launch, keep a close eye on the data and usage. You’ll be able to see which pages are most popular, where people linger, and if there are lurkers who take a particular liking to a service or product. If you’re getting a lot of bouncebacks or, even after advertising, the site is stagnant, don’t move forward yet with your business plans. Your online presence is one of your strongest tools, especially if you’re a digital company.
4. Respect your beta users
Your beta users can give you the most real world feedback imaginable, and they’re virtually gold to an entrepreneur. If possible, follow up with them regularly (you may need to offer additional compensation in order to get them to really buckle down and communicate with you.) However, if you’ve gotten to the point of beta testing, actually use and mine that data from users.
5. Get pre-orders
Not really sure how many orders are realistic in the first day, week, month or year of operating? You can find out with pre-orders (sites like Kickstarter are fantastic for this.) This way, you can gauge interest and actual intention among your target audience. If you get no orders at all, a lot of work still needs to be done.
You can also test out different versions of your site and play with test ads, too. This is all part of the prep stage of a business and there are many avenues to optimizing your impending, official launch. If you go into it without proper testing, you’re sabotaging yourself and not giving your investors/consumers the quality they deserve.