Ask HN: What's your startup validation playbook in 2024? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's your startup validation playbook in 2024?

16 pointslulznews14 comments

So it’s 2024. Building new products is trivial but getting sufficient eyeballs on them to validate a market seems like a huge pain due to channel saturation, unless you already have a huge social media following. (eg. “Just build a splash page, bro” no longer works.) What are your go to methods for rapidly validating ideas?

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I use Facebook ads. Before everyone goes “I tried that and it didn’t work” let me assure you that (done correctly) it’s highly effective. Current CAC of $80 which is paid back month 2. Went from 0-150 customers this way.

Do you think it’s effective for validating ideas though or did you already have PMF?

I did not have Pm fit. Not sure I do yet either, but that’s hasn’t stopped me from acquiring customers. It’s helped me narrow down who my audience actually is. Even if someone signs up and the cancels, that’s still valuable information. At first I churned away a lot of the early customers, but by refining and talking to those customers that signed up whether they canceled or continued, helped me refine the offering a lot. My conclusion has been that the most valuable thing I can do is to acquire as many customers as possible, as cheaply as possible, as quickly as possible to validate and refine.

>getting sufficient eyeballs on them to validate a market seems like a huge pain due to channel saturation, unless you already have a huge social media following.

"Social media" is not the only channel, and "saturation" of that "channel" does not equate "channel saturation" because, as I said, it's not the only "channel", only one "channel". Explore other distribution channels. This should come first, or second only to market.

Select a sector.

Select a segment that can pay. It helps if it can be looked up, found, targeted, reached, addressed. Distribution channels.

Find segment's problems.

It is a huge advantage if interacting with said segment is subjectively not draining/soul-crushing. It is great if the interaction is enjoyable.

It helps if the entities are actually aware of the problem. That's a huge understatement. If they're not aware of the problem, you'll have to educate/inform/identify that problem for them which increases your sales complexity (and customer acquisition cost, and veering towards high-touch sales). You'll potentially be creating a market/category and it's a whole other game. Potentially huge reward, but definitely risky.

It helps (understatement) if these entities have spent money to solve the problem (bonus point if the problem still persists/was not solved - find out why/how/when/how much). (They have a budget to solve a problem they're aware of but the problem persists or the solution is sub-par). There's actual demand from someone who can pay.

It helps to talk with an agent who can sign a purchase order/check/ or swipe a credit card in a low-touch self service mode. Even more so if said agent has skin in the game/stake/a vested interest (reward/punishment with regards to the outcome of solving the problem/failure to do so).

Scope. Success criteria. Job to be done. Metrics. What does it look like when the problem is solved. Decision makers/owners, decision process (one? many? committee? veto? exec decision to green-light sufficient in spite of? no-go if anyone disagrees? discretionary spending and credit card swipe?)

Then start thinking about a potential solution or product that solves that problem.

Maybe I didn’t explain channel saturation well enough - what I mean is that all scalable channels seem saturated currently. Getting an audience to validate an idea is as much work if not more than building the idea. So I’m looking for ways to decrease that moat.

Agree with all your other points. So how do you scale this? Identify targets via LinkedIn and direct outreach to them?

>I mean is that all scalable channels seem saturated currently

What facts lead you to this observation?

What channels are you referring to?

>Getting an audience to validate an idea is as much work if not more than building the idea.

Is an audience absolutely necessary or are a few paying customers enough? The answers to this question and yours depend on what you're trying to achieve, on the sector, the people you want to serve, etc. These dictate the channels.

>So how do you scale this?

Scale what exactly? And do you have something that works and is viable (in a business sense) you want to scale.

I'd say we live in a world with more noise where attention is scarce. It is a time to focus more, eliminate the superfluous, concentrate on fundamentals, reduce buzzwords, experiment, and be systematic.

There is so much template advice in the industry that it is hurting my eyes. Everyone shares pre-defined path of what to do, how to do... lines between good intent advice and just advice that leads to a course, community, newsletter sign up, book sale etc are very low.

There are some good industry practices that should be taken in consideration - the mom test etc etc, but in general I'm believer that you should take your own path, define your audience and find your channels.

Stop feeling the FOMO and just build a good product, talk honestly to customers, experiment with some channels and see what happens.

Mr Beast rules YT. It doesn't mean if you replicate his steps how he got there you will also. Same with all the startup funders who exited and got famous. I call them the "startup elders".

Take in the advice, listen, but decide and don't blindly replicate.

We started rolling out beta for our startup after three years in stealth-mode - so that goes beyond initial logic of launch yesterday and send an MVP even if it is wireframe bla bla... I say f*ck that Bitconned shit (see the doc if you haven't). Our playbook is to find the right audience within our pace, get some very good users that really want to use the platform. Don't push things, just be patient and build and do right.

Let's see what happens, all these "trust me bros" that share huge MRR numbers doesn't mean that they built good and sustainable businesses...

If building new products is trivial you’re most of the way there! I suggest you monetize that process. It will rake in the money.

The most effective method to validate by far is detailed in “The Mom Test”. Brutally effective, hard on most egos—but probably not yours.

Ehh moms don’t get B2B and only savvy moms are going to get a lot of B2C.

I need scalable and repeatable.

If I can't make my pitch / problem simple enough so that the average person / mom can understand it, I need to refine it. See: YCs advice on building simple pitch decks

That’s fine and all but this is 2024 we don’t need people to like pitch decks we need dollars exchanging hands. A higher bar of validation.

I think you're being misled by the specific phrasing, while underneath it's a simple product discovery technique (often referred to as jobs to be done).

No selling to moms necessary.

> Building new products is trivial

Why is this a given?

> channel saturation

What does that mean?

Marketers use the term channel to describe a way to reach an audience: social media platforms, SEO content, content marketing, ads, podcasting, etc.

Saturation is maximizing the rate with which marketers flood these channels with messages.

This is a big topic amongst B2B marketers nowadays because buyer behavior is changing.

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