5 ms·

Zero-Dollar Validation: How to Vet Startup Ideas For Free

22 points by mayava 16y ago

wmboy 16y ago
I definitely agree with pitching to everyone. Start by pitching your idea to your (hopefully for this purpose) non-technical wife/gf/partner and changing your pitch (and perhaps your idea) until he/she understands it straight away. Never thought of the Mechanical Turk idea before... sounds like it's worth a try.
- DerekH 16y ago
  I've never looked into Mechanical Turk either. Sounds like something that could be helpful. I wonder what a good budget would be for using it successfully.
  - dstorrs 16y ago
    I've done this. I set up a survey on SurveyMonkey and then created a series of tasks on MT to send people to it. I paid about USD$0.05 per survey and spent something like $30 or $40 (I don't recall exactly). I got thousands of people taking the survey, they were from all over the world, all different demographics, and the information was solid -- i.e., people didn't just type "jfalksdfjkjhgkj" to try to steal the money. One thing to be aware of: since this will be an international audience, their English reading skills will be at various levels. Make sure your directions / questions are very clear and simple.
    - mayava 16y ago
      I highly recommend that for your first set of questions you either use filter surveys (ask for age, location, gender, etc) to target people who are in your target user demographic, or have test questions to make sure they really understood your pitch (ex: Summarize this product in 30 words or less). In my studies, I limited the respondents to the US, because I was getting too much noise from international workers. I also gave them the option of leaving more detailed feedback. Most of them did, to my surprise.
      - wmboy 16y ago
        What did you find was the best way to get quality traffic to the survey page?
  - mayava 16y ago
    You can get decent data for about $50, but it may take you a few batches to get your questioning and worker filters on just right. I recommend starting with small batches of 20 or less responses, just to test quality (international vs. US only, specific panels, etc)
- jakkinabox 16y ago
  I pitched my idea to my gf and she said it was dumb :( I started working on it anyway (heh) and since I have seen funding given to a similar idea on a TV program and have seen a similar idea get a lot of attention on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2349587 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2349587). So I would recommend trying more than one person anyway and don't let it get you down if the few people you try don't give you a good response.
DirtyAndy 16y ago
Whilst this article is about more than just pitching everyone, that is the first thing that hits you, and personally I disagree with that as an approach. If you are at college coming up with the idea of Facebook then maybe it works, but in general the results you will get are too biased (sometimes in both directions). People that care about you (parents etc) are likely to like your idea no matter what, friends probably fall into this too. When someone says "that sounds like an OK idea" most people hear "that is the best idea ever". At the other end of the scale some people just don't listen and are negative, they cannot immediately see how it will work and dismiss it as a bad idea. And with regards to things like Mechanical Turk, if your product is really targetting people who are willing to answer questions for a few cents then great, but in general I can't imagine it is that useful. Pitching and validating ideas against people in your real target market is a good start, but even then there is a massive difference between saying they'll pay for something and actually paying for it. If you pitch someone an idea and it results in useful questions and a level of excitment then that is a better indicator, if someone says that sounds great and then starts talking about something completely offtopic then I would say that means they don't really believe it.
- mayava 16y ago
  Pitching is not the be-all-end-all, and you'll certainly get to a point where it stops being so useful for you (i.e. if you've already determined the reasons why certain people aren't interested in your product, no need to pitch them). We're not advocating pitching for the sake of pitching, we're advocating being methodical about and maximizing your learning from your pitches. For example, biases will definitely crop up when you pitch people. They will also crop up when you go to try to acquire customers or deal with users, so it's good practice to field them early on. Going outside your normal circles will expose you to people who aren't your friends just trying to be nice or "experts" who think they know it all and that your product sucks, so that you can 1) sharpen your own communication skills (you'd be surprised how many startups suck at describing what they do), and 2) refine your understanding of customer concerns. Also, pitching is just the beginning of validating your idea. For example, if you get people who sound excited and say they'll pay for your product, and then they don't, there can be a number of causes: 1) Maybe they were just being nice, 2) Maybe your product doesn't meet their expectations, 3) Maybe they changed their minds, etc. If you don't pitch these people, you don't have the opportunity to develop the customer insights you can get once they take a harder look at your product. In the event that someone listens to your pitch and is totally disinterested, this can be valuable too. It may be that the person you thought was a potential customer actually isn't - I'd dig deeper to find out why. Maybe you just need to explain it a different way, or catch them at a better time.
mayank 16y ago
Does anyone else feel a little uneasy about the "Twidium" tool mentioned in the article? They find auto-following bot accounts and follow them to boost your follower count. Sounds like typical dirty SEO that doesn't really create any value [1]. Wouldn't it be better to genuinely add some value with your product (and thus your Twitter feed)? [1] http://www.twidiumapp.com/accounts_list.htm http://www.twidiumapp.com/accounts_list.htm
- mayava 16y ago
  Twidium is a bit of a skeevy looking tool, I must admit. So far, we've only used it to follow people who have specifically put certain keywords in their tweets or bios, and it has worked well in helping us finding highly engaged consumers. Have you tried using it?
  - mayank 16y ago
    I haven't had cause to, but I would be afraid that if Twitter implements some sort of PageRank-style spam detection, my account would be sucked into the great cleanup if I'm following a lot of bots.
    - mayava 16y ago
      The "Follow All" bot strategy seems to be an optional package you can buy. We didn't even know about it until your comment, so it seems to be that you'd be fine as long as you don't opt in to that particular strategy.
  - semanticist 16y ago
    Mass-following based on keywords is the same as spamming. Twitter used to forbid automatic following (except for automated follow-back), but I suspect they don't care now - the more people filling it with spam and junk the busier they look when selling promoted trends.

22 points by mayava 16y ago

wmboy 16y ago

I definitely agree with pitching to everyone. Start by pitching your idea to your (hopefully for this purpose) non-technical wife/gf/partner and changing your pitch (and perhaps your idea) until he/she understands it straight away. Never thought of the Mechanical Turk idea before... sounds like it's worth a try.

DerekH 16y ago
I've never looked into Mechanical Turk either. Sounds like something that could be helpful. I wonder what a good budget would be for using it successfully.
- dstorrs 16y ago
  I've done this. I set up a survey on SurveyMonkey and then created a series of tasks on MT to send people to it. I paid about USD$0.05 per survey and spent something like $30 or $40 (I don't recall exactly). I got thousands of people taking the survey, they were from all over the world, all different demographics, and the information was solid -- i.e., people didn't just type "jfalksdfjkjhgkj" to try to steal the money. One thing to be aware of: since this will be an international audience, their English reading skills will be at various levels. Make sure your directions / questions are very clear and simple.
  - mayava 16y ago
    I highly recommend that for your first set of questions you either use filter surveys (ask for age, location, gender, etc) to target people who are in your target user demographic, or have test questions to make sure they really understood your pitch (ex: Summarize this product in 30 words or less). In my studies, I limited the respondents to the US, because I was getting too much noise from international workers. I also gave them the option of leaving more detailed feedback. Most of them did, to my surprise.
    - wmboy 16y ago
      What did you find was the best way to get quality traffic to the survey page?
- mayava 16y ago
  You can get decent data for about $50, but it may take you a few batches to get your questioning and worker filters on just right. I recommend starting with small batches of 20 or less responses, just to test quality (international vs. US only, specific panels, etc)
jakkinabox 16y ago
I pitched my idea to my gf and she said it was dumb :( I started working on it anyway (heh) and since I have seen funding given to a similar idea on a TV program and have seen a similar idea get a lot of attention on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2349587 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2349587). So I would recommend trying more than one person anyway and don't let it get you down if the few people you try don't give you a good response.

DirtyAndy 16y ago

Whilst this article is about more than just pitching everyone, that is the first thing that hits you, and personally I disagree with that as an approach. If you are at college coming up with the idea of Facebook then maybe it works, but in general the results you will get are too biased (sometimes in both directions). People that care about you (parents etc) are likely to like your idea no matter what, friends probably fall into this too. When someone says "that sounds like an OK idea" most people hear "that is the best idea ever". At the other end of the scale some people just don't listen and are negative, they cannot immediately see how it will work and dismiss it as a bad idea. And with regards to things like Mechanical Turk, if your product is really targetting people who are willing to answer questions for a few cents then great, but in general I can't imagine it is that useful. Pitching and validating ideas against people in your real target market is a good start, but even then there is a massive difference between saying they'll pay for something and actually paying for it. If you pitch someone an idea and it results in useful questions and a level of excitment then that is a better indicator, if someone says that sounds great and then starts talking about something completely offtopic then I would say that means they don't really believe it.

mayava 16y ago
Pitching is not the be-all-end-all, and you'll certainly get to a point where it stops being so useful for you (i.e. if you've already determined the reasons why certain people aren't interested in your product, no need to pitch them). We're not advocating pitching for the sake of pitching, we're advocating being methodical about and maximizing your learning from your pitches. For example, biases will definitely crop up when you pitch people. They will also crop up when you go to try to acquire customers or deal with users, so it's good practice to field them early on. Going outside your normal circles will expose you to people who aren't your friends just trying to be nice or "experts" who think they know it all and that your product sucks, so that you can 1) sharpen your own communication skills (you'd be surprised how many startups suck at describing what they do), and 2) refine your understanding of customer concerns. Also, pitching is just the beginning of validating your idea. For example, if you get people who sound excited and say they'll pay for your product, and then they don't, there can be a number of causes: 1) Maybe they were just being nice, 2) Maybe your product doesn't meet their expectations, 3) Maybe they changed their minds, etc. If you don't pitch these people, you don't have the opportunity to develop the customer insights you can get once they take a harder look at your product. In the event that someone listens to your pitch and is totally disinterested, this can be valuable too. It may be that the person you thought was a potential customer actually isn't - I'd dig deeper to find out why. Maybe you just need to explain it a different way, or catch them at a better time.

mayank 16y ago

Does anyone else feel a little uneasy about the "Twidium" tool mentioned in the article? They find auto-following bot accounts and follow them to boost your follower count. Sounds like typical dirty SEO that doesn't really create any value [1]. Wouldn't it be better to genuinely add some value with your product (and thus your Twitter feed)? [1] http://www.twidiumapp.com/accounts_list.htm http://www.twidiumapp.com/accounts_list.htm

mayava 16y ago
Twidium is a bit of a skeevy looking tool, I must admit. So far, we've only used it to follow people who have specifically put certain keywords in their tweets or bios, and it has worked well in helping us finding highly engaged consumers. Have you tried using it?
- mayank 16y ago
  I haven't had cause to, but I would be afraid that if Twitter implements some sort of PageRank-style spam detection, my account would be sucked into the great cleanup if I'm following a lot of bots.
  - mayava 16y ago
    The "Follow All" bot strategy seems to be an optional package you can buy. We didn't even know about it until your comment, so it seems to be that you'd be fine as long as you don't opt in to that particular strategy.
- semanticist 16y ago
  Mass-following based on keywords is the same as spamming. Twitter used to forbid automatic following (except for automated follow-back), but I suspect they don't care now - the more people filling it with spam and junk the busier they look when selling promoted trends.