UX for Lean Startups

Chapter 1. Early Validation

In this chapter:

• Figure out if people will buy your product before you build it.

• Learn which research methods are best for early validation.

• Understand user pain in order to build a more compelling product.

Most startups begin with an idea for a fabulous new product. Most startups also fail. These two things may be more connected than you think. The problem is that the vast majority of startup ideas are based on things that somebody thought sounded cool or interesting, rather than something that solves a real problem for real people. This is why companies need to spend time validating their key hypotheses as early as possible.

What is a hypothesis and why do you need to validate (or invalidate) it? A hypothesis is an assumption that you’re making. And, trust me, you are making a lot of assumptions when you start a company. For example, you are almost certainly assuming that there are people who will want to purchase the product that you’re building.

The problem is that some of these assumptions are wrong. If the ones you got wrong are important enough, you’re going to be out of business. Let’s talk a little bit about how to avoid building your company on a lot of invalid assumptions, shall we?

First, instead of thinking that you have to come up with a brilliant product idea out of thin air, I’d like you to shift your thinking a bit. Think about every product as a solution to somebody’s problem.

Let’s look at some examples. Word processors solved the problem that ...