What methods do you use to validate your startup idea?

1. Research the market to see if it is a liable idea 2. Go on groups, forums and PH to ask the audience and gather opinions 3. Talk to experts & see use cases 4. Perform competitive analysis and SWOT analysis 5. Launch a beta version to gather feedback and get user insights 6. Optimise and repeat

Customer interviews. First the qualitative and then a quantitive survey. It's time-consuming but better than developing something nobody wants.

My algorithm: 1. Talk to potential customers 2. Check competitors 3. Check Google trends and social media 4. Create a landing page or MVP and try to get the first sales

This is an interesting, watching and listening for now!

Engaging with community and taking regular feedback

There is lots of value in the previous comments. For me it's a three-step approach: 1. qualitative interviews and observation: take your time to understand some users/ customers and their problems. Talking to a real person for 15 minutes will be worth 15 days of online research. 2. quantitative hypothesis validation: try to invalidate the hypothesis you have after step 1. If you fail: it's a good sign. 😉 3. make your first cash before building: sell the very early MVP with minimal building effort. (e.g. sell early bird tickets or set up fake check-outs on a landing page) Paying customers are the only people you can trust! :)

Having advisors that have the potential to also be your first customers. They will hold you accountable for product/market fit viability, and they will come to conversations with a perspective as business owners. While also, in my experience, maintaining a trusting relationship to experiment and try new things that are outside the box. I'm very fortunate at CHFTY to have advisors from various F&B roles: high end chefs, fast-casual restaurateurs, and CPG founders.

1) think as niche as possible early on. You won’t get a consensus of unmet needs across disparate roles/verticals/sizes 2) recruit advisors. Unearth desperation from their day to day - and willingness to pay to solve 3) test and iterate to find the 2-3 major problems you’re going to solve. This should be a process of elimination vs. trying to cover all bases 4) convert advisors to early adopters of your MVP, use their success as market credibility

I wrote a blog post on how to apply the Generative Research methods before you even begin building a product https://www.envsion.io/blog/why-... Reckon it would be a useful read for you.

1) Build a simple landing page clearly communicating what problem it solves 2) Share on various targeted groups on Slack/FB/Discord/Sub-reddits etc... 2) Ask visitors to sign up if they'd like to know when it launches 3) Depending on the response, start building 4) Keep them updated on your progress 5) Ask for constant feedback (features, pricing, etc...) 6) Look at competition (it's healthy to have a few, which in itself is validation)