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What is the best way to validate my SaaS idea?
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Harshavardhan Reddy
Customer Segments, Value Proposition, Customer Relationships, Revenue Streams, Key Resources, Key Activities, elevating business model, Cost Structure.
some points to think and validate your idea ...
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What have you done so far? Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn to help you further on this. :) https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhea...
@rhea_reanoga @barveen_kumar While asking people make sure to let them talk about their problems. How they do the things nowadays and what they dont like. I can recommend the book MOM Test to get more insights on this :)
I have a tip:
Meet potential customers before start writing a single line of code. Ensure you have the latest person who wants your product before starting the code.
From my 1.5 yr journey into the SaaS (www.marvinxr.com), here's a summary in 6 points:
1. Do a lot of online reseach on your idea - to get the validation
2. Business trends and market analysis - will it thrive for next 5 years?
3. Discuss with people who are already in this space before you (and got a success - more or less)
4. Build your prototype (I sold a prototype which needed so much handholding in the early days - before you call it a SaaS solution and still earned $2000 in less than 3 months).
5. Get early customer feedback and shape your product future pipeline
6. Once you have a whole idea - start building the SaaS on a full fledged scale.
Hope this helps.
To test out whether your product will work or not is the ultimate goal now. For that purpose, you need a simple MVP to share with your customers and get feedback. You don't need fancy websites or big tech tools at this time. Once you feel that your product is liked by others, then you can try out the most suitable tech tools.
@barveen_kumar For SaaS, it works. Why I'm imposing a simple MVP means, not everyone will imagine the idea the same way you think. But it's a more effective solution, you can use a simple landing page to find the user's interest. Hope your idea got validated by many people, Cheers!
As a leadgen agency I would say, do a really good outreach campaign and sell your product before it's even built to your ideal target and see the traction you get. It's very clear when we run campaigns for our clients to see if their service/ product gets traction or not. Make a super simple landing page with a clear value prop.
@barveen_kumar Depends on the product and target but I would say in general that the CTA should be to book a meeting since it's what you would really need - To talk to your potential users and see what they would find useful and get to know their use cases.
The best way to validate your SaaS idea is to do a product hunt.
If nobody upvotes or sign up on the 'BETA' waiting list. You know you don't have to build it.
You could also try Appsumo. Create a good enough BETA website, if people are willingly to pay, there is a market.
In other words, if you sell luft, you have found your customers.
Market research and running some focus groups. Talk to the stakeholders in a various channels possible. That's the key, in my opinion. E.g. ProductHunt is a good means of communication :)
Analyze market -> Make assumptions -> Talk to potential users -> Analyze what they actually think and say
First question to ask:
Who will pay you for doing this?
Once you know the who, try and talk to them to understand their pain points, requirements and ability to pay
I would recommend speaking to established entrepreneurs that are in your space (or related spaces), and seeing if they feel you have an opportunity. They may be wrong, they may be right... but you'll definitely learn a lot from getting their perspective.
Validation is a continuous process until you become a Unicorn and then run it aground :P
Inward out and Outward In Approach
1. Inward Out - Your idea validation
a. For most SAAS meant for organisations, a good approach I have taken is looking at existing data for indications of stated or latent problems. That gives a direction inward out.
If you don't have access to internal data, get industry data or an insider to do some research for you.
b. Talk to few people who work around the problem area, maybe a competitors employee, just ask open ended questions. They have a lot of share. Often you may discover a far bigger problem to solve or a better solution than you thought possible. Maybe even a collaborator or your first few customers.
Don't skip this.
2. Outward In- Confirming the problem first
a. Speak to people most likely to experience the problem first hand in an organisation. For individual focussed micro SAAS, definitely speak to atleast 30 customers and hear their problems. Ask them how do they imagine it to be solved. That would help you understand customer expectations. If its a large SAAS, besides the actual User, speak to procurement and finance guys too to hear their version of the problem. If they are unaware, may mean the problem is not severe enough to have been reported internally and when you go with a solution, they will be shocked to hear that its even a problem!
b. If your problem is not stated, probe and ask about the problem area you are solving, don't give solutions. If they don't seem to care about your problem, you know what to do. Drop it and pick the most frequently stated problem. Go back to step a.
c. confirm the scale, frequency and severity of the problem. The more financial impact it has the better.
d. All businesses want higher revenue and lower cost. If your SAAS does not fall it either, time to figure out placement first.
e. Reach the right guy. Don't goto sales guy with an efficiency SAAS, Finance Head may be better bet.
Do both and reconcile what emerges. There can be some deviation, accept the outcome and move to next step.
Are you addressing/answering a pain point/problem?
Are people willing to pay for your solution?
Is there a "hole" in the market where your answer will fill the hole?
Is there competition? If so, can you make your product better and easier to use?
There's your starting points.^^^^^^
@barveen_kumar Awesome!
Regarding price. I would not just ask, "Are you willing to pay $X amount for this product/service?"
I would use the Van Westendorp Pricing Sensitivity Survey method to determine if, and how much, someone would pay for your product. This survey refines your price point much better than asking if they would pay for it at a predetermined amount or if they would pay for it and not include the amount in the question.
Creating a quick landing page and sharing it on the platforms where your target audience is active.
A year ago, we did it with producter.co -- our target audience is product managers so we were pretty active in product communities the understand the need.
@barveen_kumar It depends on the who your audience is. For example, product managers mostly located in Slack communities. That's why we started with Slack and then created our community for more detailed conversations.
@barveen_kumar Finding and surveying your target audience using Idea validation and PMF surveys would be a great place to start.
I run a research for startups program which is free for early stage startups. I'd be happy to connect and share some resources to help you get started. Here I am on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/qupt...
@barveen_kumar This is the program I am referring to (https://www.questionpro.com/star...)
4 points to validate SaaS idea.
1. Start with a problem
2. Put down your ideal customer profile
3. Sell it even before you start coding
4. Go where they are
Hey Barveen, think you might find some useful tips in this interview with Merge's co-founde, Shensi Ding: https://www.gorelay.co/t/validat...
be practical, landing page, lead generation funnel, run and test how many people would click on subscribe button, we use amazing techniques about validation.
Don't waste time doing tons of research, quick research is good
Don't do surveys unless they buy it during the survey.
Be practical
use a similar web to see ur competitors doing
Lead generation funnel and lead magnet
Reach out to me and we can help you with validation . my LinkedIn in my profile :D
Good Luck