Startup Resources: Validating your Ideas
Quick and cheap ways to do some market research to find out if you have a big idea or a complete bust. See the "Idea, Design, MVP" chapter in Part I, Products for more info.
- Advertising Sites
- Events
- Surveys
- Website Analytics
- Mobile Analytics
- Trends
- Market Research and Reports
- Further Reading
These startup resources are based on the book Hello, Startup: A Programmer's Guide to Building Products, Technologies, and Teams by Yevgeniy Brikman. These resources are a work in a progress. They are also open source, so you can add your contributions by submitting a pull request to the Hello, Startup GitHub Repository. To see how these resources fit into the bigger picture, check out the The Startup Checklist, which is a comprehensive collection of everything you need to do to launch a startup.
Advertising Sites
You can validate an idea by using the tools from advertising networks to research their userbase. For example, you can use Google's Keyword Planner to see how many people search for specific terms or Facebook's Ad Design to see how many people have a specific interest. Optionally, you can even purchase some ads and guage interest in your idea by seeing how many clicks you get.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/HomePlan your Search Network campaigns and learn what your customers are looking for
Facebook Ads
https://www.facebook.com/adsExplore the demographics and interests of Facebook's 1B+ members
LinkedIn Ads
https://www.linkedin.com/ads/Slice and dice the 340M+ members on LinkedIn by company, job title, school, field of study, skills, etc.
Events
You can validate an idea by seeing how big of a community there is for it. How many meetups, conferences, and talks are there? How many people participate? If you go to one of these events, can you get some of the attendees to be interested in your idea?
Surveys
AYTM Market Research
http://aytm.com/AYTM.com - Ask Your Target Market - is the leading innovator in online Market Research. Our survey tool with built-in experts and a 20MM+ worldwide panel helps brands and agencies gain insights from their precise target markets.
Google consumer surveys
http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/homeImagine surveying the web with a tool so precise it could predict the 2012 presidential election. With Google Consumer Surveys, you choose your target audience, type your question and watch the results roll in within hours.
Website Analytics
If there are competitors or similar products, you can research their website traffic and usage to guage the size of the market.
Mobile Analytics
If there are competitors or similar products, you can research their mobile traffic and usage to guage the size of the market.
Trends
Market Research and Reports
World Bank Data
http://data.worldbank.org/World Bank Open Data: free and open access to data about development in countries around the globe.
Nielsen Research
http://www.nielsen.com/Nielsen, a leading global information and measurement company, provides insights & data about what people watch, listen to & buy.
Further Reading
Startup Ideas and Validation
https://www.ybrikman.com/writing/2016/02/14/startup-ideas-and-validation/Every startup begins with an idea. This is a talk that discusses how to come up with startup ideas and validation techniques you can use to pick the ideas worth working on.
