Validation of Idea, simply, is the process of testing the idea prior to launching business name, tagline, product, service or website. This is something like the research and development process. Big firms and corporations have a proper setup for this. They invest a lot on this specific mechanism. They use to test product ideas before they’re open to the general public. There are thousands of startups getting emerged every day and most of them fail within 6-8 months. Although they mention the money and lack of proper execution and administration of idea behind their failure, this is not the reason all the time. Lack of research about the taste of the market, lack of proper feedback and lack of proper idea validations is the thing behind it. Sometimes, it’s very hard to read the difference between good and bad ideas. Sometimes some poor validated ideas do great. I’ll take the example of Uber and Ola Bikes, as we are quite familiar with these ideas. Initially, people were sceptic thinking about this but now they are successful and likewise, some great initiatives used to make sense but now suffering a lot for revenue. Actually, the validation of Idea is the process of gathering evidence around ideas through experimentation to make derisked and fast and informed and familiar decisions. It’s a process that starts from an idea and ends with the customer who actually pays for the Idea. The sole motto of the validation of idea is to expose the idea to the public practicality of the real world before the building and releasing the final product.
There was a total of 13 participants. In the style of Deepak Sir, Deepak sir talked about the city and weather of everyone. He also talked about the crunch of Samosas and then about charred Coffee. First, Deepak sir invited Suhasini madam. She is a scientist and she shared a very practical experience to others. She was talking about the biotechnological boom in the industrial ecosystem. So validation of idea is getting essential day by day. One step without proper planning can push a startup into a wall. After that Diki Sir, the tech assistant of Lemon Ideas shared his thought about the startup. He told about his Travel Startup and problems and opportunities he sees in this industry. After these two thoughts, Deepak Menaria Sir came with a basic and important question. What is Idea?! And he also added the answer that the fundamental of the idea always makes love with the problems and needs. Humans are always sleepy without any problem or need. If they need something or they need to solve any problem then they will start thinking and executing that. Srinivas Sir, a senior fellow of us talked about the revenue aspects of the Idea. Sometimes, without a proper validation, Idea creates a lot hurdles for entrepreneurs.
Deepak Sir made it simple. Grahak Hi Bhagwan Hai. ( Customer is God ). His validation is the must. We all think that our idea is best but sometimes it lands up to bankruptcy. So we have to put all this on customers. His validation is everything and after all, at the end of the day, he is the person who is giving money for the idea. Shreyas told the importance of presentation. He told that packing and presentation of the product is a key part of the startups. Without beautiful packing, the product can be under-rated. Deepak Sir added some points in Shreyas. He enlightened us with his experience that packing and presentation are good but the quality of the product cannot be saturated with any other tantrums. Quality is everything. If quality is the soul then packings and presentations can only stand for fluctuating minds. Vaibhav told about discussing seniors. Discussing seniors and discussing to the incubating schools like ‘LSE’ can be proved beneficial for the startups because there is no option of experience. Nothing can displace it. Abhishek, who is also a hip-hop dancer, shared an interesting story with us. He used to work in a cellphone shop earlier. He told us about selling psychology. If we pick a phone and start praising that then customers with understanding in-promp that seller is fooling him. He will understand the seller have got the task from a particular company. Instead of this, if a customer is entering in the kiosk, then the seller should identify the problem of customer first. What exactly he wants from the phone. Sometimes, its battery durability, sometimes its pixel. Same the mechanism works in validation of the idea.
Although there are multiple different ways to validate an idea, the overall the validation process is quite simple and straightforward: In an early stage, we want to focus on validating our assumptions to make sure the most critical ones for our business are true. For example, we might want to validate our target market and its potential to see if our idea is valuable and appeals to the market we’ve defined. If, however, our assumptions regarding our market and idea are valid, we can start testing our product to learn how all of the elements work in reality.
- Define A Goal
- Develop a hypothesis
- Experiment
- Validate
Although each idea is different and all of that cannot be validated with any specific and fix method, but there are some strategies that can be useful for any of the startup because the industry is always the same in somewhere its core.
- Keep the validation process simple
- Involve the right target audience
- Always be systematic
- Learn from others mistakes
- Do not be optimistic bias
- Be ruthless critical in ideas
- Do not be emotional with a certain mechanism
As a concluding word, Deepak Sir told us that don’t stick your product on customers. It’s a flop in long run. Chipkana Nahee Hai. We have to understand the need of the customer. We have to be them. We have to have empathy in our hearts for them. This is the way of proper validation. Dhirubhai Ambani took the validation of Chips in his village first. Sir also quoted the revolutionary dialogue of one of the all-time famous Indian movie DDLJ. ‘Someone somewhere is made for you.’ This same law of universe works in this mechanism. We just need to identify that algorithm.
Basically, validation of idea is done to minimize the risk of implementing ideas no one wants or isn’t willing to pay for. The purpose of validation is to make sure our product or business idea has potential and the most critical assumptions regarding our idea are valid. The point is to find the fastest and cheapest way to test our assumptions so that we can decide whether we’re going to proceed with the idea or pivot. What makes validation difficult is that often our assumptions are different from the real challenges. The whole world cannot think in the same way. This validation is actually, how we know about the algorithm of this world. Because there are numbers of different aspects we can validate, the ability to identify the most significant ones requires a systematic approach.
By
VAIBHAV SINGH
Hindu College. University of Delhi
New Delhi – 110007
