As you already know, it is really difficult coming up with a business idea that you’ll be interested in running with, but right after getting that idea, we are struck with the question, “will it fly?”.
A lot of people go into businesses and a huge number of them go out of business in few years and this has really added to the fear of people going into their proposed businesses, because of the high failure rate. They are confused about how to go about making sure that whatever idea they have is really one that will be profitable in the long run.
Luckily for you, I have just the answer you may have been looking for. I will teach you how to validate your business idea in four simple steps.
Let’s get down into business.
1. Define your target customers
You have to know who your target is. That way, you can effectively carry out the next steps in validating your business idea. Defining your target customers is just getting enough information on whom your typical customer would be. This ranges from a lot of stuff. Examples include knowing their age-range, sex, location, income class, profession, education level, etc.
When you have identified your target audience, you can then proceed to either the second or the third point in this article. Both are just as effective, but also has different advantages that come with them. Let’s explore the both of them.
2. Run a webinar
This is a great way to validate a business idea. It involves having a great informative topic surrounding the keywords of your business idea, and offering to teach people about it.
Knowing your target audience is really important at this stage because it allows you gauge the interests of those whom your idea is meant to satisfy. So, having your target audience, you want to put word out about that webinar, and then gauge the level of interest that your target audience shows your webinar. Watch out for signups, and also the buzz about that webinar.
Watch out for questions, and how involved your audience seems to be about that topic. This way, you can know before hand if people would actually be interested in what your business has to offer.
The interesting part about hosting a webinar is that in the process, you get a lot of email addresses (as people signs up), and you may just have started growing your list even before your business kicks off.
You could, also, offer that video up as a lead magnet for those who missed it, and that can be awesome in getting you more subscribers that you could just market your products to when the time comes.
3. Use Interviews
Another great way is to use one-on-one interviews. Ask critical questions surrounding your idea. You already have a demographic of your target customers, all you need to do now is to reach out and randomly select a few of them and ask for a meeting, and then shoot.
If your idea already has similar businesses already satisfying that problem, you could also do well to ask questions like;
- Would you use this product or service?
- How often would you use this service or product?
- What do you like and dislike about the current products or service already in the market?
- What doesn’t just sit right with you about this product or service?
- How much would you pay for this product or service?
4. Review and decide
Now, it is time to collect all the feedback you have been getting from your interviews and decide on whether or not you’ll run with the idea. If overall, you notice a lot of positive signs about your idea, congratulations!