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MenuWhat's the best way to validate a SaaS idea?
I'm a marketer in talks with a developer and we'd both like to see some type of validation before moving forward with building an MVP. Any recommendations on the best way to do that?
Answers
The best way to build an MVP is to distill the solution to the smaller unit of value to deliver something to a customer.
Start small, time box it and focus on solving the problem at it's core even if it's ghetto (I call the best MVP's ghetto but useful).
Here's an image that represents my thinking on this
https://twitter.com/danmartell/status/516316632126586883
I co-founded a SaaS company and have advised several other SaaS startups. We thoroughly validated our product before writing the 1st line of code. It saved us a ton of cash and time because we made a pivot before development, despite being veteran domain experts of our target market.
I consistently see startups gloss over the validation step and proceed to waste $50k - $100k in development (and re-development) costs validating their product when it can be figured out before the expensive development phase... Take your time and do this RIGHT!
There is not much in the question about what you already have (i.e: target market, research, clickable mockups, etc.) So I am going to assume you just have an idea.
I give an educational talk called “Idea to Revenue: 5 Steps to Validating your Startup Product”. It is quite an involved topic so for the sake of this answer I will give an outline of the ‘How To’ without the examples and ‘Why To’ explanations. Contact me for more details or help with your specific scenario.
----- The 5 Steps -----
#1: Idea - Brainstorming & Research
Research
- Identify competitors (crunchbase, google, app store, etc..)
- Does your idea exist already? (Google Patents)
- Can you do it better, faster, cheaper?
Brainstorm - Identify huge opportunities to disrupt the market
- How are people addressing the problem now?
- What disruptive technologies can solve the problem?
- Where is the competition missing the mark?
- See non-competitive products for more ideas
#2: Plan - Narrowing the Focus of your Product
- Document your Assumptions
- UX hypothesis
- Goals for the product
- Define the MVP
- What features are required to sell the product?
- Connect the functionality to the product goals
- Define metrics for success
- Define customer personas
#3: Sketch - How to Use a Quick Drawing to Determine the Interface
- Create a sitemap of the product
- Use pen/pad to sketch the interface
- Design whole tasks that testers can complete
- Show the connections between the screens (information architecture)
#4: Clickable Mockups - Create a Realistic Demo of How the Product will Look and Work
- To create a realistic interface use the following tools to mockup flat designs for each screen that you sketched (*hint: use real copy)
- Desktop: photoshop/sketch or axure or a similar program
- Mobile: AppCooker or Proto.io or a similar program
- Use Invisionapp.com to connect the flat designs so that the user can click/tap on the buttons and transition from screen to screen. This will give the tester a ‘real enough’ experience to complete tasks and answer questions about its viability
#5: Customer Testing - Getting Real World Feedback
- Use Questionnaires and Interviews
- Collect qualitative and quantitative data to prove or disprove your assumptions for each persona from step #2
- Repeat the Design/Learn feedback loop until the testers can consistently complete the tasks that you have mocked up. Additionally the quantitative data should suggest that the product will solve a significant enough pain point that they will pay for it.
- You can find testers in your network, linkedin, facebook, twitter. Just ask people for their valued feedback on a new and exciting product :)
- I received a 51% response rate on a Linkedin feedback campaign. I am happy to share the how that works and the exact templates if you contact me.
This is a down-and-dirty overview of how to validate your SaaS product. As mentioned above there are more details, examples and explanations but if you follow this outline you will be ahead of the game. Feel free to contact me for further help.
Cheers,
--Ryan
The best way (in my experience) is try to deliver the value but in a old-school way (not software related). Sometimes this is not possible, so you want to try to get as close as possible to what would be your product.
Example: I wanted to know if people would pay for software that would help them curate and manage their social media feed but get it deliver by email (for 40+ audience). I curated Twitter, LinkedIn and other social network where I could get graphs and started and email list. I got feedback that it was very useful and then I ask them if they would pay for it and how much.
My advice is: find the real value that your SaaS will deliver, and try to do it manually in small scale. Then try to get paid for it. If you get customers, then you may build something to serve them.
**sometimes this is hard to do if the problem you are solving is very complex. In this case you should pitch the solution to possible clients and see if there is enough interest for pre-sales or if they commit to a pilot
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I'm a product developer, startup veteran, and advisor to SaaS companies. Hopefully you've been already developing this new product with input from your existing customers, letting them beta test it and give feedback. (If not, my advice is to STOP immediately and get enough pilot customers involved to be sure that you're delivering something really valuable to them, that works the way they expect it to work, is easy to understand and get started with, etc.. The last thing you want is to do a big splashy launch of a product that is D.O.A. because you built what you assumed the customers wanted instead of they actually demonstrated that they wanted.) OK, so let's assume that you've got customers in the loop. Interview the heck out of them. Really understand how they use the product, why they use the product, what makes it valuable to them, what they can do with it that they couldn't do before, etc. If the product's not done enough for them to be best testing it yet and getting results, at least get some insights into how they see themselves getting results from it. How does it/will it change their lives? As you do this, be on the lookout for things that really resonate. Emotional language, for example. "It's such a relief that I don't have to worry about sending invoices manually anymore." (or whatever pain it is that your software solves) Also look for (and try to elicit) specific result statements: "This new software saves me [or is going to save me] 15 hours a week. Now I can spend that time where I really want to, with my kids ( ... my cat ... my golf buddies ... )" You're doing this for three reasons: 1) This stuff makes for phenomenal testimonials; 2) it helps you come up with great ideas for pre-launch content; and 3) it generates *PURE SOLD GOLD* you'll use in writing the copy for your launch offer. OK, launch mechanics. There are people who teach huge long expensive courses on this stuff. I'll give you the Cliff's notes. While I haven't personally run a major product launch, I have been trained in the strategy and am very familiar with it. - Plan your launch period in advance. You might want to do a pre-launch sequence that lasts 1, 2, even 3 months depending on the magnitude of your product and how much effort you're willing to put into creating content for the launch. - Create some teaser content of interest to your customers who might want to buy this product. Offer to teach them something, or offer to give them a sneak-peak behind-the-scenes of your new product. - Send an enticing offer for this content out to your list. Get people who are interested in this content to sign up for it. This creates your launch email list. - Send your launch list weekly updates: development milestones, sneak-peak screenshots, videos, educational material, interviews with/testimonials from beta users, and so on. - You're not trying to sell here yet (not hard sell at least). Drop some hints that there is going to be a special offer when the product launches, just for special loyal customers like them. - Create at least three videos on topics that are really, really interesting to your prospective customers... not necessarily about your new product itself, but teach them about what they can achieve with it, or what others have achieved with it already. As you publish these videos, send the link out to your launch list. - Also send out an offer to see these videos to your main list, to entice more people to sign up for your launch list. - As you get closer to launch time, keep sending frequent updates to the pre-launch list, and send another email out to your main list to let them know that the product is launching soon, and that if they're interested in the special one-time-only launch pricing, they need to sign up for the "early bird list" (your launch list). - Send out a 24-hour notice that the launch is going to happen soon, and the launch pricing will only be available for a limited time (potentially, to a limited number of customers ... to increase scarcity and urgency). - I recommend that even if you plan to open the product up to all your customers that at launch time you limit it to a smaller number. This makes the inevitable post-launch gremlins less painful to deal with because you have fewer customers, and it motivates people to buy because they fear that they'll lose the opportunity to do so. You can open the product up to more people later... the delay will result in pent-up demand and easier sales. - Start the launch. Tell your early-bird launch list a few hours early, then tell your main list. Direct them to a web page with a video and long-form sales copy of your launch offer. - Send out 2-day, 1-day, 12-hour, etc. notices that the launch is ending soon and reminding people what they're missing out on if they don't act now. If you're offering a limited number of spots, tell people what percentage has already sold out. Remind people that if they're "on the fence" about this, that this is the time to make a decision. - Send out an email letting people know that the launch is over and thanking them for their support and their vote of confidence. Tell the people who didn't buy (or didn't get in) that you'll let them know that the product will be opening up for new registrations some time in the future. (You may get people sending you emails begging to be let in at this point, if your product is desirable and your marketing was executed well.) And, of course, you don't just have to promote your launch content to your existing customer list ... you can post it to social media (and encourage your customers to do so) to attract brand new customers into your world. If you'd like to go into more detail about launch planning for your specific product and market, I'd be happy to jump on a call and talk about ways to make this work for you.BB
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How important is coding knowledge in starting a SAAS business? Should I start by learning code or just get started on the idea? Book suggestions?
I started a large SaaS Company for B2B where perfection in code is as importante as it gets. So here is my advice, DON'T CODE until you know what the Saas Really is. First start understanding what the problem REALLY is. Interview people and actually spend 100% of your time doing Customer Discovery. (This sounds easy but it is a skill you'll have to develop far more important than coding). Once you understand what the problem is, come up with a value proposition. Still no code. Then make a sell. If you can actually find things already existing that you can Hack and put it together then use that. Then make another sell. If you can sell it to at least 50 people if you are B2C, or if you are B2B you should have at least 1 customer. Once you do that then start automating some parts of the solution that you have hacked and so on. But THE most important thing is to be in constant conversations with your customers and hot leads. Remember you are a customer making machine not a coding machine, the first one is where the money is. Hope this helped you, if you want to talk more about customer discovery and customer development, just give me a call.JC
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What legal precautions can I take to make sure nobody steals my startup idea?
I've discussed ideas with hundreds of startups, I've been involved in about a dozen startups, my business is at $1M+ revenue. The bad news is, there is no good way to protect ideas. The good news is, in the vast majority of cases you don't really need to. If you're talking to people about your idea, you could ask them to sign an NDA ("Non Disclosure Agreement"), but NDAs are notoriously hard to enforce, and a lot of experienced startup people wouldn't sign them. For example, if you asked me to sign an NDA before we discussed your Idea, I'd tell you "thanks, but no thanks". This is probably the right place though to give the FriendDA an honorable mention: http://friendda.org/. Generally, I'd like to encourage you to share your Ideas freely. Even though telling people an idea is not completely without risk, generally the rewards from open discussions greatly outweigh the risks. Most startups fail because they build something nobody wants. Talking to people early, especially people who are the intended users/customers for your idea can be a great way to protect yourself from that risk, which is considerably higher than the risk of someone taking off with your idea. Another general note, is that while ideas matter, I would generally advise you to get into startup for which you can generate a lot of value beyond the idea. One indicator for a good match between a founder and a startup is the answer to the question: "why is that founder uniquely positioned to execute the idea well". The best way to protect yourself from competition is to build a product that other people would have a hard time building, even if they had 'the idea'. These are usually startups which contain lots of hard challenges on the way from the idea to the business, and if you can convincingly explain why you can probably solve those challenges while others would have a hard time, you're on the right path. If you have any further questions, I'd be happy to set up a call. Good luck.DK
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