Founders have great ideas.
Founders have amazing ideas and are looking to solve meaningful issues that contribute to a better society. Their ideas are often born out of a pain they have faced themselves; I call this the light bulb moment or, one where they are dealing with the problem already at their workplace and have found a more efficient way to market. Being flexible and open-minded in the early ideation stage is important, however, do not sell your solution at this early stage.
Conducting a thorough validation process is key and can potentially make the difference between success and failure. I’m often asked, what should you validate? I like to refer to this process as the ‘validation triangle’. Founders need to explore and challenge their current assumptions of these three points of the validation triangle to achieve product market fit -
- Validation Triangle - Pain 2. Market 3. Product
Be curious and thoroughly explore everything there is to know about these three areas with your customer. That includes the relationship your customer has with the problem and how they deal with it today. Find out what solutions they use now and why, what is working, and what can be improved. If you’re doing this much, you’re on your way to being a great listener and finding the gaps in the market, the spaces you can crawl through, to find your unique positioning. We call this your secret sauce.
Do not sell your solution at this early stage
The challenge is trying to go against your natural tendency to hear what you want to hear. We often do it both in our personal and professional lives. And it’s no different when launching a start-up. It often is a common mistake made when developing a product.
Founders miss the warning signs and avoid digging more into potential negative responses, discounting them if they don’t fit within their preconceived objectives. It's good to hear bad news at this early stage. It will save you a lot of time and money in the long run.
It’s good to hear bad news now. It will save you a lot of time and money in the long run.
Instead, founders focus on the answers that validate the product they already have started to build or want to build and ignore the true feedback and criticism.
Challenge your assumptions.
It’s time to challenge your assumptions and test them on your customers. Make a short list of your top assumptions that you’re making for the business and then formulate a series of questions that will flush out these responses with your customer. If you’re truly honest with this process, it will go far deeper and beyond these initial responses. Understand your customer’s attitude and relationship with the pain point as we’ve said and get the full picture. Are your findings starting to align with your value proposition?
Interviewing your customer.
I constantly see founders selling their solutions in early interviews and most cases, their customers will just agree with them and give them false hopes to go build something they wouldn’t pay for. Without casting too many aspersions on your customers, they may not be telling you the whole truth when answering your questions. That’s why it’s crucial to dig deeper into your customer’s thoughts, avoid closed questions, and use techniques like the 5 why process, where you don’t take the first response and keep questioning until you unveil the real truths behind their answers.
Cast your net out wide at first, using surveys and an audience building tool like Prolific, which will get you an initial market response from hundreds of customers for a reasonable cost. Narrow in on those responses that appear to be aligning with your assumptions and then send them a second series of questions and so forth. Continue this process until you’re satisfied that you have challenged your assumptions thoroughly. You’ll soon start to see common themes.
Avoid closed questions, and use techniques like the 5 why process
The next crucial part is to interpret the data correctly, making sure you’re not avoiding any negative answers and you seek to dig into them further, through secondary and tertiary surveys. Leave no stone unturned.
Seek to then start having face to face interviews with some of those surveyed customers and find some new ones to speak to as well.
Product market fit.
Sometimes it may seem like there is a degree of luck involved when coming up with a product that will intrigue and excite an already busy marketplace. If you conduct a thorough validation process by asking the right questions, listening, and interpreting those answers carefully, then you may well just be on the way to achieving product market fit. Allow yourself to be challenged.
Product market fit is the holy grail for any founder. It represents that perfect alignment where your product or service seamlessly meets the needs and desires of your target audience. Achieving this fit is a testament to your business's viability and potential for success.
Product market fit is the holy grail for any founder.
It means you've not only identified a genuine problem in the market but have also crafted a solution that resonates with your customers, creating a sustainable path to growth and profitability. For a founder, it's the ultimate validation that their vision is on the right track.
