Ask HN: What are some creative ways to validated an idea before implementing it? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are some creative ways to validated an idea before implementing it?

17 pointsalfonsodev12 comments

Sell it before building it.

If there are no buyers - validation done.

If there are buyers - refund money, apologize for delay, send X% OFF coupon and start building it.

Maybe a bit controversial but works with many types of products or services.

(About 15 yrs ago I had an idea to combine all esoteric spiritual ideas that belongs to certain fragmented discipline into one place and sell it as eBook. That exactly what i did and was very surprised to give 4 refunds within short period of time, before putting it "off market")

A slight variation of it is - sell it before building, but let the users know it isn't ready it. Give them a deep discount (50% or more) for their trust. The idea is to set a release date, and if you don't hit it, refund the money.

Make website. Advertise website on Google or Facebook or whatever. Have pretty screenshots about what the idea is. When people click the sign up button or try to enter their credit card info, it crashes.

Another alternative: put up flyers. When someone calls, say that the service is currently fully occupied. (works great for car rentals, cleaning services, etc)

After validating, you might want to shut down the advertising.

thanks, that reminds me some services that have a queue for early adopters where can sign in to be in the queue waiting to enter beta program. I guess I could implement that queue, put 100 as initial number, and let people join the queue, when I'm ready for beta just need to notify them that it is their turn.

Depends on the idea itself. If it's a business idea, talk to people in your imagined target group and validate that the need is real, and that the way you want to solve it isn't wrong in an immediate sense.

My top 2: 1. Interview customers to discover the right segment and if they care enough about the problem you want to solve. 2. Use a landing page to validate the solution and marketing channels before you build it.

How do you find customers to talk to? I have one user who gave me a good idea (happened by accident), I think it will work. But I am no expert in that domain and I don't know how to find more users to talk to, before writing any code

The domain likely has tradeshows, trade publications, bloggers/influencers, etc.

Ask them to pay for a crappy version of the product.

This is key. People will talk a big game and then make excuses why they can't pay. Make a version and sell it.

This. The best customers are the ones who have already hacked their own crappy product, probably in a spreadsheet or some chat group. As long as yours is less crappy, there's a market for it.

that makes me very optimistic, I've located many related WhatsApp groups and telegram, the only thing that concerns me is how to deal with copyright, people seem not to have any problem infringing copyright on WhatsApp and telegram sharing files.

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