Quick note ... Crucial mindset to Validation
Before we delve into the selection process, we should remember that any validation should be done with the mindset of “Forecast, measure, revise, repeat” in order to achieve successful validation.
Forecast, measure, revise, repeat
4 simple sentences to cover this mindset are :
- Forecast the goal and objective you seek to achieve
- Measure the the progress towards the goal
- Revise our validation methods and content in order to bring us better outcome
- Repeat the above process again and again while iterating
I cannot stress enough about how important is this mindset when we execute validation. Bill Gates once wrote,
“I have been struck by how important measurement is to improving the human condition. You can achieve incredible progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal….This may seem basic, but it is amazing how often it is not done and how hard it is to get right.”.
Validation is not a one-off process, it is an iterative process to get you the right business insights so you can build your business with actionable business intelligence. Therefore if you did it right, validation is a journey of discovering the opportunity ; the more the unknown, the more the opportunity.
And hopefully with this reminder, you will be remembering and execute it under this mindset while we run through the 25 validation techniques.
How to select the suitable validation techniques
As we keep mentioning, we will be sharing 25 validations techniques. But .... are you going to use all 25 techniques? Definitely not necessary, in fact, you should just choose a few that would serves your purpose. Depending on what you are looking for and what existing resources that you possess, you will make your choices in terms of which techniques you will be using.
To select which techniques that are to be used, we ask ourselves 7 questions in a sequential manner :
1. What am I trying to validate in my business?
What are the data that I would like to find out about my business idea. Is it the problem, the solution, the customer, the market or the competition?
2. Am I looking for quantitative data or qualitative insights?
Depending on the answer that you want to discover, you have to choose between what types of data to collect. Some techniques work better in collecting certain types of data while some doesn't.
3. Do I want to get insights from real people or I want to get existing data from research?
Depending on the stage that you are in, you will get more useful data either from the perspective from real people or data confirmation through sifting data that exists in the market. Both have its pros and cons.
4. What are my technical capabilities?
Specifically, can you code, good in copywriting, designing, or do you have a lot of connections? It's important to know what capabilities you have versus you not have, and choose validation techniques that utilise your strength and capabilities.
5. How long do I want to get my data? What is turnaround time of validation? If you are under specific time constraint, definitely rule out certain techniques as some need more time than the others.
6. How much data am I looking to collect? What is the sample size that I am looking at? Decide the threshold of when will it be enough.
7. What are my budget?
Do you have any budget in using services that could speed up your process?
To answer the first question - What am I trying to validate in my business? Read on the next post : 10 Business Insights to discover through right Problem Validation.