How to Validate & Start Your Business Idea in 14 Steps - Part 2

We have already discussed the 1st 6 steps to validate and start your business idea in my previous article; How to Validate & Start Your Business Idea in 14 Steps - Part 1

In today’s article, I will be explaining: 

• the next 8 steps you need to follow 

• 11 free tools you can use to do these steps

In brief, the next 8 steps to validate and start your business idea are as follows.

7. Do a survey/ Talk to people.

8. Identify your target audience.

9. Be active on social media.

10. Keep on talking to your selected target audience.

11. Find “Early Adopters”.

12. Fill the Lean Canvas.

13. Come up with your MVP (burning problem you’re solving).

14. Add all the “Non MVP Features” to a backlog & Start the real work.

Now let’s see how to do these steps for your business idea practically. 

7. Do a survey/ Talk to people.

Create a questionnaire using Google forms (via your Gmail, Google Drive) or Tally (both these are free tools) and collect information related to your problem and solution. 

Try to understand;

• who has the same problem which you have, 

• their characteristics (profession, gender, age group, their interests),

• social media channels they use now,

• the alternatives they are already using to solve the problem, 

• what issues do they have with the existing alternatives they are using? 

Try to collect info from as many people as possible. So that when you start your business, you can use these info for targeted marketing. 

8. Identify your target audience.

You are already aware of your competitor’s target audience now. So, now it’s time to identify yours; is it going to be the same target, or is it different? It’s up to you. If you are trying to get your competitor’s customers, it will be difficult, because you will have to be better than your competitor (This is really not what a startup can do with very less financial and other resources). However, if you are trying a different sector or an age group, things will be a bit easy for you. Although you need to make sure that the new target audience you are trying has the need for your solution. 

Use HubSpot Persona builder. Again, it’s free…

When you do this, prepare two (2) personas; 

1. one is your exact customer (Positive Buyer Persona)

2. the other one is the opposite of your target customer (Negative Buyer Persona)

So that you know whom to target and whom to avoid when doing marketing. 

9. Be active on social media.

Be active on social media channels that your target audience is using and create a personal brand for yourself on those platforms. This takes time, but you can start now and grow slowly. By the time your MVP is ready, you’ll have your own audience as the early adaptors for the product/ solution. 

10. Keep on talking to your selected target audience.

Yes, send it again and collect info, but this time, change the questionnaire accordingly to collect the most required data to help refine your selected solution. Use all channels, platforms like Reddit, Facebook groups, LinkedIn polls, communities and social media to collect answers. This is another way to validate your idea/ understand whether people need your solution. 

11. Find “Early Adopters”.

This is another way to validate your idea and also to find potential customers, even before you start building your business solution. There are many ways you can do this and below are some popular strategies. 

Keep in mind, “People Trust People”, so be a human. Show your face to build trust. 

• Start posting content related to your idea through your personal social media profile to make awareness and attract potential customers (CTA - Join our waiting list, Join our newsletter, Request a Demo etc.).

• Write blogs about your business problem you are trying to solve and create awareness and grow a subscriber base for the idea (Show case studies, testimonials of your test users). You can try below platforms for blogging for “Free”. 

Substack - You can own the email list/ your subscribers (Offer free options for newbies), Pay as you Grow pricing strategy

Beehiiv - You can own the email list/ your subscribers (Offer free options for newbies), Monthly subscription strategy

Medium - You cannot see or obtain the email addresses of your subscribers, but this is popular, because it has been established over the years and it does SEO by the platform itself. 

LinkedIn Newsletters/ Articles by yourself - The best professionals’ network to find your target audience easily and it does SEO for your article too. 

• Create a website for your business. Add a video of your business solution reflecting what, how, why. Request the website visitors to submit their email addresses via your website if they are interested to know when the product/ solution is launched (eg: Join the waiting list). 

• Create social media pages for the business idea and start creating awareness and grow followers. 

• Circulate videos and posts related to your business solution via social media and influencers. Request people to follow your business social media pages and newsletters/ blogs. 

  • Fill the Lean Canvas.

This will help you to clear out all the doubts you have about your solution and get a clear picture about the MVP (explained in the step 13) you are going to build. 

Let me send you a free template for this step. Make a copy for yourself and edit it. Enter your email address here and submit. I will email you the “Free Editable Lean Canvas Template” that I am using. (Please note that this is my newsletter subscription form, so you’ll receive both the subscription confirmation and the free Lean Canvas template together). 

12. Come up with your MVP.

Based on all above, come up with your Minimum Viable Product (MVP). 

• Identify the main functionality of your business solution/ idea that you are providing to the customers. This is the main problem you are solving. 

• Pivot your idea based on the results and findings you collected to make the idea more viable and required for your targeted customers. 

• Find the real burning problem and give the simplest solution for that. 

• Your solution should be easy for you to build within a month or two.

• Also, it should be easy for your customer to use. 

Don’t get lost with adding too many features. People don’t need swiss knives, they love simple basic solutions to solve their issues.

13. Add all the “Non MVP Features” to a backlog.

Add all the “Non MVP Features” to a backlog in a notebook or in a google doc/sheet or in any note. You can use tools like Jira and Clickup as well if you prefer. These tools have free versions to use. 

Keep these non MVP features noted somewhere for future use 🙂

So, now you have identified,

• what your MVP idea is which has been already validated through various ways as done above, how to do it, why you do it (This is your Validated Business Solution)

• your exact target audience, their characteristics, what do they do, their behaviours (This is your Customer) 

• where to find them (This is your Marketing Channel)

• who are your competitors, their strategies (This is Your Marketing Strategy to copy or innovate or avoid when reaching your customer) 

• in which market/ country you are trying to launch your idea (This is your Marketplace to sell it). 

Now, it’s time to take action. Build your own business. Good luck on becoming an independent, determined “GoalGetter” this Christmas to be actually happy about yourself! 🧑‍🎄

I can help you optimize your LinkedIn profile;

• To stand out among the crowd (because attention is the key now)

• To land in your next dream job (because you are losing $12,000/yr now staying at the same place)

• To start your LinkedIn creator journey (still only 1% users are creators on LinkedIn. Don’t lose this huge potential to grow your personal brand).