How to tell if you really have a genius business idea?

If you have an idea that is so good you can barely stop thinking about it, it is certainly time to do something about it. After all, a business idea only has value when it is put into practice. But even if you are sure you possess all the tools and skills to make your business venture work, it is extremely important to know if your idea is really genius.

This validation will save you time and prevent future problems, so read all our tips to make sure this first step is taken correctly!

Your business idea solves a problem

Think about all the successful companies you admire the most. They certainly solve some sort of problem; otherwise, they wouldn’t be successful. Kindle, Google, Skype, and Netflix are solutions to problems that affected many people, and, besides these, there are many others that meet the needs of smaller, more specific niches. For example, healthy subscription boxes for vegans.

People would pay for your solution

After making sure that your idea does solve a common problem in a certain audience, find out if this audience would, in fact, buy your product or service. In order to do this, you will have to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and test it in your market.

The MVP will be the simplest version of your product, which can be made with the least effort possible, for a small part of an audience. The results from this sampling will then validate if the idea is accepted, and the data will also be useful for you to adjust the business model as needed.

No one is doing it

If you have an original idea and there is no service similar to yours in the market, you may have a golden idea in your hands. Being a pioneer will give you a competitive advantage and the opportunity to shape the market in a way that is convenient for your market. The disadvantage is that you will soon have competitors. No business idea that is good is free of competition for a long time, but you just have to follow them closely, always keeping your business one step ahead.

Your idea already exists, but you can do it better

Kodak, the pioneer in photographic cameras, saw its doom when the digital market swallowed the model of printed photographs. Refusing to innovate and reinvest in the market that it had created, it was soon replaced by other brands which seized the opportunity at the time.

The crucial moment is when, for a period of time, well-established businesses don’t yet realize there are new demands they need to meet. This is what happened with Uber, which saw the opportunity for private drivers, since the only individual transport service for years and years was only taxis. Before it existed, you needed to call a taxi company or find an available taxi on the street, but now you can do it via an app, instantaneously, or even schedule a ride for a specific day and time.

Many business models that achieve success today are merely old ideas that have been adapted to meet new demands. And this recycling process will never end since the world evolves around new technologies. Think about what you may offer that is different, a characteristic that will lead the audience to choose you instead of the competition.

It is easy to understand

Is your business idea easy to explain? If you had to give an elevator pitch to an investor, for example, would you be able to explain your business idea in only a few seconds, in a clear way?

Even if the structure behind your system is complex, your proposal must be concise. Because the easier it is to be understood, the greater the chances of it being accepted.

You are passionate about it

This is an essential point! Even if you identify that your business idea has the potential to take off and achieve success, you need to be passionate about the subject and the market you wish to act in. The first months, or years, are going to be very challenging, and if you don’t love what you do, the first obstacle you face will make you give up.

How do you find out if you are passionate about what you do? Well, if you wake up every morning motivated and excited to work, even if you don’t make any money out of it, you love what you do.

It is scalable

If your idea is scalable, it will have more chances of being successful. Being scalable is having the possibility of multiplying a small scenario into a macro one. For example, you teach 8 English lessons per day, from Monday through Friday, and this is the largest number of lessons you can teach and do your other daily activities. You cannot double or treble your income by teaching more lessons, simply because this is humanly impossible. You are stuck because of time limitation. But if you record video lessons with all the material for a student to learn basic English, then you can sell your course to millions of people online, who will watch them whenever they want.

This is a simple example of scalability, which is, in a nutshell, doing something that breaks the barrier of time and space.

Now you know the theory, let’s move on to the practice. After all, the faster you validate your idea, the faster you can start your business.

5 practical tips to validate your MVP

Now you know the most important things to consider to tell if you really have a genius idea, let’s get to the practical part. Asking half a dozen people what they think of your idea is not enough.

Your MVP will provide an analysis of your business value to a certain niche, and the main resources it should contain.

1. Ask Specialists

Don’t be afraid of exposing your idea if it is not ready to be launched. Look for specialists in the subject, entrepreneurs, investors, ask for their opinions and what they would do to improve it.

Visit websites like Quora, where people will answer your questions in an impartial way since they don’t know who you are.

2. Interview with the general public

That is, with potential clients. If you have identified your audience and already have your buyer persona mapped out, you know exactly who to contact to answer your research. If you still don’t know who the ideal audience for your business is, you can carry out a broader research that will indicate the people with greater tendency to use your service.

List the problems that your business can solve and ask about how often people face them, how they deal with it and if they are willing to pay for a solution.

Include all the necessary questions to collect enough data for your analysis.

You can carry out your research face to face, and/or use Google Forms to do it online. In order to attract more people to answer, you can give away a small prize in return, or offer some rich material, like an ebook.

Use tools such as Facebook ads and Google Adwords to segment your research for the ideal audience. This way, you will have results more faithful to reality.

3. Landing pages

With landing pages, you can capture emails, offer a service trial or even present a commercial proposal. Remember that your page should focus on one single objective, otherwise the visitor will get distracted and not complete the action you intend them to. You can also use paid ads and social media to promote your page.

4. A/B Testing

From now on, A/B testing is part of many strategies in your business. Through it, you can identify which characteristics from your product/sales page influence people more into conversion. In your MVP, you can test features, design, price, audience, call to action and many other variables that may affect your result.

A/B testing can (and should) be applied to your landing page so you can validate what achieves better results. This is a very common technique in CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), to check how your page could achieve a better result through experiments.

5. Product demonstration

Use videos to launch your MVP! Visual resources have much more power to elicit empathy. Think of your persona when you create the video, and then you will be able to find the perfect tone for it. Explain your business in an instructive video and direct the audience to your landing page, aiming to convert!

Click play and see an example of an instructive video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBjobzw1l_w

These are only some of the validations you may use to tell if your business has (or hasn’t) got the potential to be successful. And it is possible to improve them according to your market niche!

For instance, if your product is a software for companies, you should have a prototype that can be used. If it is a digital product, you can create a smaller version or a blog about it so you may be able to validate the audience’s engagement with the content. And if it is a subscription to a physical product, open the shopping cart only to a preselected group in order to test it.

Remember that, in case you still haven’t got an audience, you should invest in ads to attract clients in potential. Make sure your segmentation is suitable for the ideal audience.

What do I do after I have validated my business idea?

After you test your MVP, it is time to make some readjustments to suit the needs of your audience as best you can. And now, you can use more robust resources to launch your business in the market, start a website with your brand’s identity, and, if needed, look for investors.

When you reach this point you will be able to effectively start your marketing strategy, which will be fundamental throughout the course of your business.

Always keep in mind that the business guide is the client, therefore always pay attention to the feedback and the improvements they suggest, as well as complaints.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on your competition and the changes brought about by technology.

What if your validation does not achieve good results?

If after all the modifications and tests, your MVP does not achieve satisfactory results, or any results at all, this is not the ideal moment to move forward with your business idea. The ideal thing to do is to adapt it to a different niche or wait for a better moment.

To pick your brain and have other great ideas, read our post on 7 different ways of making money from your talents and skills.

Do you have any questions about your business idea? Let us know in the comments section below!