Ask HN: How do you validate your startup idea?

Before I even do any real-world validation I like to score my idea based on four criteria -

1. how much time is needed to get this idea off the ground, 2. how much money is needed to get this idea off the ground, 3. how many new skills are needed to get this idea off the ground, 4. How much will I still enjoy building this a year from now?

Sometimes an idea is just too big or ambitious at first and this helps me sanity check it.

After that I like to validate my idea - for that I need to learn if people are:

1. interested in the idea 2. willing to pay/use it

I always recommend keeping it simple, fast, and cheap - customer interviews, landing pages, mock ups, etc.

This example from buffer - https://blog.bufferapp.com/idea-to-paying-customers-in-7-wee... has been around for a while but I still like to point it out as a good way to test a concept and see if people are willing to pay for it.

I'd love to hear what you are working on, I'm a business coach and do a lot of free coaching for new startups ping me if interested jarrett@startupdaybook.com

I'll tell you what not to do: spend $10-30,000 on letting a MVP company build and support your MVP for you. (Enterprise variant: spending $x00,000's on a proof-of-concept or "MVP" of some product without any consumer data or analytics backing it up.) Fool's errand. I haven't met a company that succeeded this way. (I never used such a company, but I've known one or two.)

MVPs should be "easy", dirt cheap and highly accessible. If shit breaks because too many people want in, then that might be an idea worth building on. If the app is too hard to build and isn't getting traction quickly, it might be too hard or the wrong thing.

I would highly recommend getting a copy of the book Will It Fly by Pat Flynn. His method of building a market map will help to validate the idea.

Setup a landing page and ask for money. If someone signs up, you are onto something. Try to get a few customers, preferably to offset your monthly costs and then start building. This only works on a smaller projects without physical costs.

I.e. I posted a website with a basic concept of what I could provide. After the first person signed up, I started building out the infrastructure.

Just create something for your personal benefit that doesn't yet exist. Something new or for a lower cost. Once you've built it, others are likely to find it useful as well.

I highly suggest reading "The Mom Test"