Market Validation: What’s All The Fuss About?
Market validation. It seems to be the one thing everyone talks about, yet most starting entrepreneurs have never heard of. The ideology behind startups and success stories is being portrayed as ‘having this amazing idea, building it and the customers will follow automatically’. Seems legit, doesn’t it?
The fact that you are reading this probably means that the above-mentioned made you smile. Firstly because it isn’t true, and secondly because every creator/dreamer wishes it was.
Market validation is what drives the startup and VC landscape, mainly because market validation equals revenue, profits and a possible exit. Secondly, in this ecosystem, everyone is basically guessing what the next hype will be and falling back into cliches -- but markets don’t lie. If customers (businesses or individuals) are willing to pay for a product and remain willing to pay over longer amounts of time (months/years), this means your ‘solution’ solves the problem. Boom, there is your validation.
At the same time, in the process of validating your product, you will encounter eye-opening moments. If you go out here and talk to your clients, hear about their needs, talk to them about their problems, you can tune (or even pivot) your product in the right direction. All you should care about is your feedback loop with your customers, especially in the early stages of your company. The story of AIRBNB emphasizes this, I strongly recommend listening to this podcast: ‘How I built this’.
In the end, validating your product (at the earliest stage possible) will give you numerous advantages:
You will reduce the possibility of launching an unwanted product (duhh)
Validation will lead to ‘co-creation’ with the customers, thereby enabling the product to excel.
You will prove to investors, and more importantly, to yourself that you are able to sell and generate revenue.
You will minimize cost, effort and time
On the topic of market validation, there is much more to learn. Eager to learn more? Then check out the next few articles. In these, we will take you through the process of validating your business, step by step.