How To Validate ANY Idea
Even the greatest companies and products created had to start somewhere… but where?
Idea validation.
Here are a few examples of companies you might recognize and how they validated their idea.
Zappos - Nick Swinmurn took pictures of shoes at a local retail store and posted them online. When customers bought them, he’d then go back to the store, buy them and ship them.
Toyota Sienna - The Chief Engineer of the 2004 Toyota Sienna, Yuji Yokoya, took a 53,000 mile road trip across the United States AND Canada as well as parts of Mexico. He talked to real customers out in the field and drive around in older models Siennas.
Intuit - Scott Cook, the founder of Intuit believed that there was a better solution for managing finances… but he needed to talk to real people and see what THEY wanted. He opened the phone book and started making calls asking whoever answered if they found it frustrating to pay bills by hand.
Groupon - Founder Andrew Mason took a work press blog, labeled it Groupon and then posted each day about different coupons available. When people signed up they’d hand make a PDF and send it manually through email. The first a Groupon was for a pizza restaurant.
These companies are HUGE now; but everyone starts somewhere.
If you’re still not sure where to start, listen this podcast from Chris Koerner and Nick Hulewsky
Or this newsletter where I share more entrepreneur lessons on starting, buying or scaling a business directly to your inbox.