What can I use to rapidly test my ideas?

Question

Can I build a product in a week , weekend, day or even an hour? The question makes sense because it is always better to have something out in the wild and quickly. But, even though I know this:  I struggle with moving from an idea to a product. Ideally, I would like to move really quickly through this process to test whether an idea matters or not. If you have any  suggestions as to what apps, products, books, etc may assist in rapidly testing ideas I would be most appreciative. I am also answering this question below. (Update - 23 October 2017. Thanks. Keep the recommendations coming. I think I am going to try as many as I can over the next few weeks - will post updates below).

Louis de Vaumas · Accepted Answer

I’ve just built a product in 3 days using just Carrd and Typeform. I didn’t realized the  power if Carrd before!

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Look like a simple way to understand user flow on your app or website.

Sam Rye · Answer

Product Hunt released Ship for this exact use case too..

Lisa Dziuba · Answer

You can set up a pre-payment with Gumroad, so you can check if someone ready to pay for your idea :)

Kunal Bhatia · Answer

I'm a big fan of prototyping my ideas and using design sprints to validate how useful they are to potential customers / users. This approach helps you de-risk your idea fast. My go-to tool right now is Atomic, but there are lots of tools that may fit your needs. With Atomic, I'm able to prototype many types of, and sometimes complex interactions with very little effort.

Erlich · Answer

Game over. Try it. You won't regret it.

Sam Rye · Answer

One of the most important parts of developing new ideas is a direct communication line to your users. Intercom is popular but expensive - I'd look at Freshchat which has a free tier and is pretty solid.

saravanan · Answer

end-to-end solution. developing first app is harder (~1 month), once got hands on experience, one can experiment any idea in a week.

Anish Mathew · Answer

If you are looking to solve problem with business processes through an app, Zoho Creator could be the best way to rapidly test and develop it.

Sam Rye · Answer

I'd also suggest looking at Airtable if you want to look at prototyping something driven by a database, or a process which traditionally relies on spreadsheets.

Sam Rye · Answer

Really solid quick site creator at a reasonable price point ($19/year)

Ryan Troll · Answer

Very awesome rapid testing solution IMO. We use Carrd at our agency to help our clients get their concepts out of their heads and into the wild, fast. We've since moved over to Carrd 100% for this stage of product concept validation. Can't wait to see this powerful app grow over time.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Interesting and important idea - build publicly and have someone to hold you accountable

Mus`ab AlRuhaily · Answer

Powerful tool.

Richard Bui · Answer

Turns your ideas into new connections from community.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

This looks like an awesome 6 day process. And they planning to stream the event.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

there is a very useful pdf which discusses some criteria to choose between projects. amazingly, it is pay what you want.

Khodl · Answer

Wanted to show my students how to make an MVP quickly. It took us 25 minutes from idea to production, using Carrd with the Stripe and Zapier (for mails and Google Sheets) integrations. Then we had to wait for DNS propagation, which was the longest part.

Sam Rye · Answer

Leanstack by @AshMaurya and team is a useful process & tool (the lean canvas backed by a web app to help you manage the lean startup process) and an educational series. I'd highly recommend taking a look.

Sam Rye · Answer

You need somewhere to keep all the insights! So I'd heartily suggest Milanote as a home for all you research and concepts.

Alonzo · Answer

Think with Google gives us many tools to test your ideas

Alonzo · Answer

File Transfer & Share Without Mobile Data Usage Absolutely

Alonzo · Answer

baidu search helps you to find users demand.

Timothy Graham · Answer

Great for seeing if you can get people to sign up for your product to see if there is interest.

Kesava Mandiga · Answer

Make Ship by Ben Tossell is your solution! Ben does some great work with MVPs, so get in touch with him and he can help you get started. :)

Graeme · Answer

If it's an app idea!

Lisa Dziuba · Answer

Medium works perfectly if want to set up a blog very fast :) In several minutes you can make a very-customised blog page.

Ish Jindal · Answer

You do two primary things to test out your new product idea -
1. Tell people what you intend to do
2. Collect inputs/suggestions/feedback frim prospective users/customers

Tars helps you create automated chat interface to tell your product story and gather data from users.

Check this quick thing I set up with Tars to test out a new idea - www.sengro.com

Sam Rye · Answer

If you want to start playing with prototypes, I'd suggest having a look at Bubble for web apps.

Answer

There is very little you can't do with Bubble. And last I checked, it is more affordable than Webflow.

Sam Rye · Answer

I'm a big believer in building communities of practice and purpose, as a forerunner to any official product or service. I believe that the best way to develop products is directly interacting with people and understanding their needs, frustrations, hopes and dreams.

Mighty has made that whole process more easy. It beats Slack hands down for this sort of use case too.

Arseny Stefanov · Answer

Act in The Lean Startup framework and don't forget to measure your success.

Michael Morrison · Answer

I'm reading this book right now.  It provides a framework to follow for your question on how to quickly test ideas.  It's built on collaboration within a company setting, so if you're just an individual it'll be a little different but you could still apply the process.

Answer

Fast, easy, powerful, and affordable.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

A reminder that times a ticking, and endless vids/social media are just a wasteful use of time

William · Answer

It helps me focus and stop wasting time on FB. (Disclaimer: I'm the maker)

Joshua Tabakhoff · Answer

Meja is a platform I built specifically for sharing ideas and giving/receiving feedback -no marketing thing- it's pretty calm now but we're working on new things, maybe you should give it a try!

Thomas DIDIER · Answer

@ebrahimkhalil you should check out Forest (www.forestadmin.com), the first SaaS back office solution. No need to spend weeks developing an admin interface to manage and visualize your data. Best way to focus on your customer-facing product and all the other tasks which needed to be done to quickly test your project idea.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

This looks really interesting providing a "one-stop shop" for testing ideas, and includes a process and a way to test ideas via ad networks and landing pages.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Looks useful - provides guidance to the method and the steps to follow.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

"Like Product Hunt. But for Ideas." - interesting take on crowdsourced idea validation

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Looks like a cool prototyping kit.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

non code app templates - solves  challenges for non-technical founders.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

get video and audio feedback from users at an early stage.

Ty Magnin · Answer

Once you have a working webapp, you can use Appcues to drive better adoption to it. Appcues lets you create onboarding experiences or drive feature discovery without writing any code. 🚀

nurula · Answer

its free and huge of audiences

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

A way to filter ideas - take an idea and see if you can apply in your country.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

"Learn to build and launch your startup in 30 days, for free" -looks fun, action orientated and made by serial maker @bentossell

Sam Dickie · Answer

Free usability for your MVP with over 250+ testers from 38 countries!

Ciprian Dragoi · Answer

no developer required, easy to use

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

cool tool from board of innovation.  but the idea generator is not the only tool. incredibly useful free tools and free https://www.boardofinnovation.com/tools/#tools. i really like the business model kit.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Interesting take on recording and sharing ideas.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Excellent team behind this product, with lots and lots of experience.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

excellent team behind this product. definately gonna try this.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Interesting offering that combines testing your idea, with some marketing elements.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Interesting take on rapid and collaborative prototyping

Dr. Edge · Answer

I love Airtable. I use it to track/hold everything from press coverage to events.

Evan Petrack · Answer

Second this recommendation of airtable - I'd personally suggest it above typeform for forms + capturing all that date into a usable, good-GUI database as opposed to Google sheets.

Bring in the fact that airtable plays nice with IFTTT, then you've got some great automation capability ahead of you.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Provides a set of steps to complete a sprint. The process and steps are detailed with examples and set of instructions. I think it can be used by solo makers as well.

Alonzo · Answer

File Transfer & Share Without Mobile Data Usage Absolutely

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Widgets for pre-launch campaigns. One less thing to design

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

There is only one WIP - excellent community with awesome feedback. This is my No.1 recommendation to test ideas quickly.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Space to share ideas.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

This provides a way to learn about validating an idea, and running experiments.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Ideas, ideas and more ideas. Useful to get thinking about your idea, and also evaluate against others. Looks real interesting, gonna read it.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

I know WP the best, and the ecosystem has so many readily usable options.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

I have read the pre-order version, and found it incredibly useful. It reminded me of who I am - an indie maker. The book has an exciting approach to testing ideas, and provides a set of steps to do exactly that. Definitely a  recommendation.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Interesting take on ideas. Nugget has a list of ideas, and a way to track  your progress. This is a freemium model.

Dominik Kugelmann · Answer

I found another interesting app for testing and shipping MVP's to test your product(s).

Answer

Dust’s mission is to build a future where the world can launch 10,000 startups every day for $100 each.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Looks like a good opportunity to get something done in six days. And the creators will stream the event.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Easy site creator, and has excellent designs.

Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen · Answer

Excellent guide to validating a product or service. The most important bit for me is that the process is outlined and actionable.

João Faraco · Answer

I can't recommend Bubble enough. Their interactive tutorials are enough to get you hooked, and able to create almost anything, without writing a line of code.