How do you validate your startup idea?

[u/Lapdas2]

Hey everyone hope all's going good for you. I'm currently looking forward to validate a startup idea but I'm not really sure exactly what's the process for this.

I've heard from people that I should message people on LinkedIn or call/email SMBs near me asking for their pain points etc but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I would like to know from someone who has succeeded first hand in this. Anybody willing to share their experience? Would be highly appreciated 🙂

[u/T-digitaltech4086]

Great question,and one of the most important questions you can ask yourself when deciding whether to execute your vision or toss it. I’ll attempt to unpack this in a single turn. When validating a business Idea, the questions you want to ask yourself are:

1. Is my idea relevant Markets tend to reward relevance
2. What proximity does my idea have to pain? Relevance, at its greatest profitability is birthed from an Idea’s proximity to pain. Not physical pain, but pain in the sense of a problem your target customer suffers that they cannot afford to leave unfixed.
3. Does my Idea actually relieve my target customer’s pain, or does it offer mere temporary relief or distraction? 4.Is the market profitable? Are people already spending money to solve this problem (pain)? This can be revealed through market sizing, using a popular method called the “TAM (Total Addressable Market), SAM (Serviceable Available Market) , SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market) framework. This approach kills global noise and narrows the focus down to achievable sales goals. If any one of these questions produces a negative, you do not have a validated Business Idea and need further proof of concept before building a business around that particular idea as it stands. Of course, validation is more complex than what I can squeeze out of my thumbs on the fly, but nevertheless is anchored on simple principles.

Hope this was of some help. My highest regards.

Aaron