One of the first ways of the idea of validation I'm going to talk about is doing it in person and in 1
real life. 2
Are you I'm not online? And this is the absolute easiest way of validating your idea or your product and it's 3
basically just talking to somebody about it. 4
Now the important thing is that you have to get good feedback and you have to listen to that feedback. 5
You have to find somebody in your life who is not afraid of telling you that your idea is absolutely 6
crap. 7
Of course they can be wrong. 8
You have those people who just tell you that you're no good at anything. 9
But there are also people who will give you balanced critical opinions and those are the most valuable 10
people you can find. 11
Now the thing about now the thing about humans is that we don't take criticism very well. 12
One of the things that a lot of founders can get stuck in is this sort of idea chasm when they are so 13
vested in this brilliant idea that's going to be the next unicorn or the next Facebook, 14
they cannot accept any sort of criticism. 15
And I've seen this so often when people come to me for advice on their idea or the company that they're 16
starting. Now I often try to give a balanced feedback 17
you know if there's something that's really glaringly obvious that makes their idea completely unfeasible 18
I will tell them about it. And you see the way that different people react to that kind of feedback. Some 19
people-- 20
Now some people will argue back and say yeah but there's this and that which is good that means they're thinking 21
about it. 22
But then there's other people who will just completely not accept any sort of criticism of their idea. 23
And this is what you must guard against. 24
Look to see if you are doing this in the business or app idea that you're pursuing because it could 25
potentially cost you years in time and lots of money. 26
So listen to critical feedback, evaluate it to see if it's valid. 27
Now this is not to say that if you have a brilliant idea and everybody shoots you down that you should 28
give up on it because there's a lot of ideas that are open markets that we never really thought about. Because 29
UBER started initially targeting the luxury car market, It was absolutely tiny. And nobody, VCs or angels 30
investors could actually see it going anywhere and definitely you know a lot of people missed out on 31
a great opportunity to invest because they couldn't see it getting this much traction and ending up 32
where they are now. 33
And similarly with AirBnB there were a lot of people who were like, "why would you want strangers 34
in your house? 35
Surely they're just going to rape and murder you. 36
This is totally never going to turn out well." 37
And yet you know right now AirBnB has a huge percentage of the private short term rental market cap. 38
So it's not to say that you should let the opinions of others determine how you're going to go forward 39
but it's important to absorb some of the criticisms so that it can guide your decision making or that 40
you can address it 41
when you do launch. So don't be stuck in your own idea 42
chasm. Listen to people's feedback and opinions. 43
So this is essentially a boiled down approach of how you can go about doing this from today 44
essentially if you already have an idea. So it's called the Starbucks approach and it's basically where 45
you just walk into Starbucks and chat to a strangers. So find somebody who's sitting alone at the table 46
and either offer to buy them a muffin or offer to buy them a coffee. And you ask them about your brother's 47
app idea or your brother's startup idea. And this is very important because if you tell a stranger or 48
even you know somebody know that you have this great idea, 49
people don't tend to want to disappoint other people. They will refrain from giving 50
you know the harshest of criticisms because they care about how you feel. And as humans we are all kind 51
of empathetic in that way. 52
So by saying that it's your friend or your brother's idea and you're just doing a little bit of you 53
know market validation, then it removes them having to be nice about it. And you don't want them to just 54
tell you "Yeah it's great. 55
Well done." 56
You know that's not what you want at all. 57
You want them to identify 58
all of the things that could go wrong with your idea and to bring your attention to things that you 59
haven't really thought about. 60
And step 3 is of course asking them what do they think about this idea, 61
do they think it's going to work? 62
If not why if yes why etc. 63
Now this approach is going to cost you maximum £10 or $15. So for the price of two coffees and maybe 64
30 minutes of your time 65
you could potentially be saving yourself months of hard work of toil and a lot of investment of your 66
resources that will go down the drain because of something that you know you haven't thought about or 67
because it was actually a terrible idea to begin with. 68
So whenever I tell people this, there's always somebody who asked me you know "should I ask them for an 69
NDA which is a non-disclosure agreement?" It's essentially sort of loosely legal binding document that prohibits 70
the person from sharing details of your idea with anybody else. 71
And my answer is always in phatic clean no. 72
And the reason for that is because if you've ever built a company if you've ever built anything worthwhile, 73
you know that it takes so much more than just the idea. You know a lot of people can have ideas but the 74
ones who become found and the ones who become successful are always the people who take action. 75
And I can tell you that there's not a lot of people who take action in this world. 76
And also if it is a good idea that you've got, you can bet that right now across the world five other 77
people at least five other people will have had the same idea. 78
There is nothing unique about our brain. 79
There is only something unique about what we choose to take action on and whether if we do so. 80
So don't worry about NDAs, don't worry about people stealing your idea. 81
It is so much more valuable getting that feedback getting information from people maybe with domain 82
knowledge or getting criticisms about your idea that you can address. 83
So this is the approach that is probably the cheapest and the least time consuming and it allows you 84
to gauge firsthand at people's reactions and people's feedback. 85
And I can honestly say that this is probably one of the best ways of validating your idea. 86
Now I know that not everybody is comfortable with the idea of going up to a stranger and you know exposing 87
your your deepest darkest secrets in the form of your app idea or your startup idea. 88
But just try it once or twice because starting a startup is all about the hustle, 89
it's all about you know getting out there and getting people to know about what it is that you do or 90
how it is that you're helping people. 91
So if you can't bring yourself to discuss your idea with a stranger for 30 minutes in Starbucks you 92
know there's really minimal risks here. 93
The worst thing that can happen is that they'll say no. 94
And then you move onto the next person and nobody's going to die. 95
Nothing's going to happen. 96
So just as a challenge for those you guys who are listening right now and you have an app idea or 97
you have a startup idea, go out there grab a coffee buy somebody else a coffee see what they think about 98
it and practice this way of idea of validation.