Earlier this month, at Startup Breakfast Club, we caught up with Courtney van Beek from Assurity, Shelley Magic of MYOB, and Ashley Bass from Jade Software to discuss startup validation.
These were the top ten takeaways on startup validation:
- Make it easy for yourself with a value proposition framework.
- You need to be able to tell your brand story really quickly.
- Find out the difference between what someone says and what their body language says.
- Validate your hypothesis by identifying a clear buyer. Ask yourself if the market is too crowded and if not, whether your offering is unique enough to enter the market?
- Execute each phase as lean as possible as subsequent phases require progressively larger investment.
- Advance or eliminate ideas as quickly as possible with rigour.
- Ask yourself if you are actively addressing your customers’ problems?
- Incorporate feedback loops: constantly iterate and feedback to each other, speak to your customers as often as possible.
- Process and frameworks are great but people can hide behind process and can hide behind validation.
- Always be open to hearing things you didn’t expect to hear and then pivot.