I was recently invited by the team at Docstoc to participate in their “expert” video series, meant to help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and individuals. This is part 2 of 4.
Here, I talk about how to test a business idea:
- Throw something in front of customers. Create minimal marketing materials and present them to customers (in person, via mail, via search, etc). Don’t need a lot. 500 visitors or 10 in-person consultations will probably get you 90% of the information. (See: Jakob Neilsen, Hallway usability testing).
- Gauge the response. # of folks who provided email address, # of survey respondents, what they said, etc. Some of this is not scientific. Hopefully you will have verified some of your hunches. Perhaps you’ll hear something that you didn’t expect.
- Refine or drop the idea. Proceed with confidence, or, further dig into some of the concerning pieces. Better to work hard at this, up front, and be honest with yourself (vs. spending lots of time and money building stuff folks don’t want).