How to Validate Your First Startup Idea
Hello, I'm preparing to launch an IT startup. I have a product idea, but I'm wondering how to validate whether it's actually needed.
Here's what I've thought of so far:
1. Create a landing page to collect emails (targeting 100+ people)
2. Conduct interviews with acquaintances (20 people)
3. Develop an MVP and test it with real users
But building an MVP takes a lot of time and money. Are there any cheaper ways to validate? For example, could I replace it with an AI chatbot?
4 answers
Email collection on the landing page is fine, but the target of 100 is too low. Shouldn't you gather at least 500 to make it meaningful?
Interviews with acquaintances are useless because your friends just become yes-men. Better go to an open chatroom where your target audience hangs out and ask them there lol
Can be replaced by an AI chatbot. I used a tool like 'Elijah' to run mock interviews, and it was surprisingly decent. However, there's a difference from real human reactions, so take it with a grain of salt.
Well... just because you validated without an MVP doesn't mean everything works. What really matters is how many people actually try it and are willing to pay. If you only collect emails, the participation rate won't even hit 10% lol