How to validate a product idea before you write a single line of code

Inspiration has struck—you’ve got a startup idea, and it’s a good one. Now it’s time to ask the question that takes your concept from pet project to money-making business: “Is this something people need?”

Before you write a line of code—or ask someone to write a check—part of the pre-launch process involves seeking assurance that the problem you’re addressing is widespread and the way you’re approaching it is the best possible solution. A validation stack usually involves talking to people, building small tests of demand, and quantifying the users and market you can expect when it comes time to launch.

This is a critical step for startups: CB Insights data shows that 43% of VC-backed companies fail because they couldn’t find the right product-market fit.

Define your problem and your market

Write down a hyper-specific problem statement. Hypothesize exactly the types of people facing the problem and try to estimate how much they might pay to solve it, using any available data.

Try to map out the total market for your value proposition and what your differentiators in it would be. Who are your competitors? That includes direct competition—companies with a straightforward alternative—as well as indirect rivals, or competitors in a broader sense, i.e., Netflix versus social media as two different but somewhat analogous ways to waste time. Try to find out as much as you can about how these competitors operate, how they perform, and how much of the market they hold.

User surveys and interviews

Once you’ve hypothesized who will be buying your product, it’s time to test those assumptions. A key step in any validation process is hearing from the people who make up your target market—not just friends or family who’ve nodded along to your enthusiastic musings.

In his book The Mom Test, entrepreneur Rob Fitzgerald talks about the right and wrong ways to go about gauging their interest. The titular premise is to create questions eliciting such objective responses that even your mother wouldn’t appear biased toward your idea.

The trick is to ask users about their experiences and specific concrete problems they’ve had in the past rather than proposing your idea and getting feedback—which introduces elements of suggestibility and dishonest politeness. A good prompt is something like, “Talk me through the last time X happened” or “How much does it cost you?” rather than “Is X a good idea?” or “What would you shell out for X?” The structure of this research process can include interviews with members of your target user base, surveys aimed at your prospective market, or even focus groups.

If customers indicate they’re already improvising inefficient workarounds to the problem you’re trying to solve or dedicating budget to it, that signals it’s critical enough that they’re likely willing to pay for a solution.

Smoke-test landing pages

You’ve conducted many interviews and the results are encouraging: People are really struggling with the problem you’ve identified. Another easy way to validate demand involves assembling a quick landing page with a catchy headline for your problem and a description of your proposed solution. Call for a concrete action like a waitlist sign-up, demo request, or preorder. Don’t overthink the web design too much; this is a test case, not a full-fledged brand website, and it can take as little as two hours to build.

Once you’ve created the page, drive some traffic to it by sharing the link on forums, LinkedIn posts, or subreddits; sending it to some of your interview subjects; or even doing small targeted ad buys. Use analytics to track the conversion rate—a good goal depends a lot on the quality of the traffic and whom you ask—and tweak or readjust your assumptions if the page doesn’t seem to be getting much interest.

The 40% rule

After you’ve gained some initial traction and people have tried out your product, it’s important to validate that you’re achieving product-market fit.

Growth marketer Sean Ellis has a simple rule for checking this. Ask your users in a survey how disappointed they would be if your product disappeared tomorrow, with options for “very disappointed,” “somewhat disappointed,” “not disappointed,” or “N/A, I no longer use it.” At least 30 responses are needed to make this survey “directionally useful,” and 100-plus makes for confidence in the results, he wrote.

Ellis found that if less than 40% of users said they would be “very disappointed,” startups tended to have trouble scaling. Companies between 25% and 40% are getting close to achieving fit, while those with under 25% might need to rethink some things.

Surveys might include a few other open-ended feedback questions so that founders can readjust their targeting, positioning, and onboarding and get a bit closer to the threshold in the next survey.

By making sure to tap into the concerns and feelings of your intended user base, and with very little up-front investment, you can make sure that your product isn’t greeted by crickets when it arrives.