Ask HN: How do you validate an idea that it will work? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you validate an idea that it will work?

3 pointsheyhey123t2 comments

I just launched http://startmydomain.com and im trying to validate the idea. I'm not sure if its a good idea or a crappy one. :)

Time will tell I suppose. The idea is that you want to create a coming soon website, with responsive design and you want to collect visitor emails for people interested but you don't have alot of time as you are busy building the main website.

Lets say it takes a week to build a coming soon website and your time ( or someone else's is worth $30 an hour ) that's $1200 dollar just for a basic coming soon website. with http://startmydomain.com you can build a coming-soon website with zero coding and zero hosting and i'm making it FREE while its in BETA or I might just keep it free if I don't get alot of signups

I am basically looking for validation and I'm making this up as I go along:)

Would love to get some feedback though.

Is it a thumbs up or a thumbs down ?

cheers!

This seems to have some potential, but I feel like there are a number of services that at least overlap with what you're doing. The challenge might be differentiating yourself and figuring out how to gain mindshare.

A few thoughts on the site itself:

1. "domain named servers" should probably read "domain name server" or just say "DNS servers".

2. "Easely" should be "Easily"

3. Regarding collecting emails... how do you do that? Do you just capture them and let the user download a file, or do you provide any sort of distribution list service, or is there a way to easily integrate with something like Mailchimp, etc? My point is, if you're going to collect emails, ideally it would be very easy to turn around and send a message out to all of those collected emails.

4. Some of those templates you have do look really awesome! It might be interesting to put a carousel on the front-page with some thumbnails of those, so people can get a quick look without having to click through to the template list page.

5. Profit??

It seems like there would be a narrow window where firms would want a "Coming soon" website. So you'll only have like five minutes in the new firm's life get their attention and get them to sign on the line that is dotted. Also, since they are new they won't have much cash to spend.

There are lots of website creator websites (Wix comes to mind, or even wordpress), so cutting through the others' marketing noise and capturing a new firm within a short window seems very difficult.

It might be interesting to look at the tactics of capturing customers for other businesses that cater to the initial steps of creating an entrepreneurial venture. LegalZoom comes to mind (for incorporating a new business). Also, The UPS Store and getting a PO box --- how do they attract new small businesses?

My $0.02. Good luck!

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