Launching a tech product without proper validation is a costly mistake the first founder commits recurrently.
You must understand that everything in business needs to have a methodology and a process to obtain the results that you are looking for;
If you create a product without a plan, your product will fall into the trap of forgetting ideas or platforms that never finished because they took so long or because they didn't have the budget to continue.
You must follow a process to validate your idea to ensure that when you launch, you mitigate the risk and are successful.
Here's how to validate your idea before takeoff.
Research the Market and Understand User Needs
A thorough understanding of your target market is the foundation of any successful launch.
Define your ideal customer profile and dive into their specific pain points.
Conduct surveys, monitor trends, and analyze competitors to identify opportunities where your product can shine.
See what the weaknesses and strengths are, know how you can improve, and what they are doing that you can make better (your value proposal will be the one that will make the difference in a launch)
This step ensures your solution addresses a real need and informs your UX UI design choices.
Engage Users Early through Interviews
In our last article, What Angel Investors Want to Know When You Pitch Them, we spoke about the importance of having a team member who is a potential user.
This team member usually has direct contact with other potential users and, because he is experimenting for the first time, knows more about the market's pain.
If you are making a SaaS for doctors, have a doctor on your team; if it is for teachers, have one. This will give direct contact to the user with the same profile.
Direct feedback from potential users gives you a golden opportunity to shape your product according to actual needs.
Conduct in-depth user interviews to understand their behaviors, challenges, and preferences.
This will help refine your concept and strengthen the appeal of your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) when it's time for development.
Investors want to see that your product solves a problem with real-world demand, and who better to prove it than a person who lives in that industry?
Launch a Landing Page with Earlier Access to prove your idea.
Our last article, "What Angel Investors Want to Know When You Pitch Them," also mentioned what to do if you do not have numbers because you are just starting.
You need to make an earlier access stage first to see the market response to your idea.
In Entertact, we have received hundreds of ideas that look good on paper, but when they go to test, they don't go as planned or don't have the expected demand.
How do you make the validation?
You can do this by creating a simple one-page landing page that showcases your product's core idea through wireframes, design mockups, or explainer videos before you spend thousands of dollars creating the project.
Once built, drive traffic to this page through organic and paid channels and measure the number of people who express interest by subscribing to updates or pre-ordering.
A well-optimized landing page can also test design and marketing messaging elements through A/B testing, giving you critical insights into what resonates with users.
This is a great way to build a pre-launch audience; it helps you to have validation and gives you several how many people will use it when you make the official launch (this is the number you will use in your pitch deck to validate your idea in the traction slide)
Develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Once you've validated your idea through research and early feedback, it's time to develop an MVP.
The MVP should focus on solving the main problem your target audience faces while leaving out unnecessary features.
At this stage, once you validate your idea, it is crucial to create a Moscow analysis to keep the UX simple, intuitive, and aligned with the core value proposition.
Remember, the MVP aims to test functionality and gather real-world data to guide future development.
Focus on delivering a great user experience with a beautiful and modern interface. Thanks to its contemporary and professional look, this will attract early adopters and give investors confidence in the product's potential for growth.
Refine Through Continuous Testing
I've researched, validated the idea, funded it, and launched the MVP. What's next?
Well, it would be what all businesses need to succeed (numbers, data). Yes, we all skip that boring part, but it is essential.
After releasing your product, gathering performance data and conducting user tests to optimize the experience is highly important.
Use A/B testing to tweak features and UX UI design elements, ensuring they align with user expectations.
The more you refine your product and listen to your users' comments and opinions, the more attractive and polished it will become.
Why Investors Care About a Validated MVP
Investors always seek products with a strong market fit and low risk. Validating your MVP through user testing, market research, and feedback demonstrates your product has real potential.
It proves that you've done your homework, are a professional at what you do, de-risked the investment, and are ready to scale.
Summary
Making a successful launch is always complex and must be in hand with an excellent strategy to achieve the success that you are looking for; making an earlier access or soft launch to validate your idea is the best way to ensure that your product will be a success in the competitive market and that people really wanted, After that keeping your product always improve the base of user feedback allows to fix bugs, add new features, make it simple and scale up the business.
Sometimes, when we create a platform or SaaS, we think that people should buy it because it responds to a big problem in the market, but if your platform presents a very complicated user experience, no one will be able to use it.
Is like you were in a park in paris and you see a person robbing another one, how you are going to comunicate the issue to the police if your are not clear or you dont speak french?
We use user experience to resolve that problem; if the user sees your platform as complicated or doesn't understand it, you can stop trying to spend thousands of dollars on marketing that will not work.
Every spend you make in your business is a great investment that will save you time or more money.
In Entertact, we are giving a new package to support different businesses to get success on their tech launch from the earlier stage of funding to MVP design, where we address all these points and more; if this can be interesting for you, let's get on to call and let get your idea happen.
Get a proof of concept in the first meeting here!
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