Six ways to kick-start your business idea with Lean Startup Methodolog

According to a business study by Small Business Trends, out of all the small businesses that started in the year 2014, only 70% made it to their third year in 2016, and 56% made it to their fifth year in 2018. However, one can’t deny the fact that startups face their share of challenges that some of them are never able to overcome.

Moreover, with the inherent structure of startups, their standard approach to business development is different than the existing businesses. Startups function on their innovation; they scale differently and have different aims. Most of the startups strive for change rather than to follow on an over-worked path of popular business strategies.

Lean startup methodology is one of the school of thought for idea validation that helps startups get direct feedback from potential customers and bring consistent improvements in their idea for a positive impact on bottom line.

Let’s have a look at some of the most effective ways of idea validation that can help kick-start your business using lean startup methodology. 

Get familiarized with your product idea

Working on an entirely new product idea can get a little complex. Hence it’s essential to take some time off and consider what your product is really about. You don’t even need to write the business plan, because as startup your idea is likely to go through some changes when you start communicating with potential customers.

You need to answer a few critical questions because you go out and test your idea. The sooner you test these assumptions, the less risk you will take when introducing your idea. Some of the questions that you should ask yourself include:

Who are your customers?

What problems are you aiming to solve?

How your product will solve these problems?

What are the core features of your product?

Secondary research

When it comes to doing competitive analysis, secondary research comes in handy. It is all about reading articles, research, studies, white papers and statistics by other people. When you are working on your startup idea and research, competitive analysis and the overall research should be your primary focus.

It is very much possible that someone else has come up with the same idea as you and they maybe have executed or tried to implement the idea. So it is vital to do your competitive analysis and bring some changes to your product if required.

Interviews with potential customers 

As soon as you have made important decisions about your product, it is time to get out and test how your potential buyers react to it. You also need to understand what would be the best way to reach them, would it make more sense to go on the streets and start a conversation or it can be more efficient to contact them via phone.  

However, if you want, you can also interview experts, like industry analyst, consultants, and other professionals within the industry. They are the people who understand this industry and can give you valuable insights about buyers’ behavior.  

Email Campaigns

Cold calling or interviews is not an active channel of communication for your B2B product idea. However, emails work better when engaging with business professionals and potential buyers. Hence, an email outreach will be the strongest in a business context.

Before contacting business professionals, make sure you have answers to these three essential questions:

What type of firms and businesses will use this product?

What is the size of these companies?

Who are possible decision-makers in these organizations, for your product?

Online & social media ads

In this digital age, your idea validation process is incomplete without reaching your audience through productive outlets like social media outreach and online campaign. You can use many customization options for more accurate results, such as target audience and location. It is a better outreach channel for C2C product ideas than email. It gives you insights about the industry, consumer tendencies and how your target audience thinks.

The ads can lead to a temporary landing page that includes an email collection form. If your visitors enter their email information, give feedback, or submit any questions that they might have, it means that the campaign was successful.

Minimum Viable Product  

Finally, once you have gone through your preferred lean startup methodology of idea validation, and you feel confident about your idea, now is the time to invest a little more resources and time. Start with building MVP, and you should be able to launch it immediately.

The MVP will give you an excellent idea about the use and feel of your product, and this can be the final idea validation for your product before you give it a go.  

Conclusion

The next time you have a big idea, you know exactly how to validate your startup idea using different method depending on your industry, target audience, and product type. Hence, make sure when you go in with your product production you wholeheartedly believe in the idea, as many of your potential customers do.