Page 28 - The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch - PDFDrive.com

Avoid Failed Validation Techniques

“The Lean Startup” movement has made people think that business has become
a simple scientific experiment. Pre-sell $10,000 worth of your product and
there’s a definite need there. Create a landing page, and if you get conversions of
over 30%, then you have a great business.

It’s validated.

In rare circumstances, this works. Let’s delve into some of the reasons why, in
most cases, it doesn’t.

Validation Doesn’t Work Well When the Answer Isn’t an Obvious
“YES”

The popular stories you hear about startup validation go something like this:

1. I created a website with a brief video.
2. It went viral.
3. I bought a yacht.

Dropbox started from a 3-minute video posted to Hacker News and their signup
list jumped to 75,000 people in one day. At the time of writing they are now a
$10 billion company.

That’s great if you can get 75,000 opt-ins in one day. But if you don’t, is it a bad
idea? Maybe you just don’t have much kudos on Hacker News. Maybe people
don’t understand it. Maybe your video is crap. Maybe the right people didn’t see
it.

The reality is that most ideas aren’t going to go viral. Let’s face it: the chances
of you coming up with the next Dropbox are low. This is particularly true for
bootstrapped companies.