📰 How to validate your business idea with 5 simple steps from "The Mom Test”

Key Highlights Starting with a Great Product: Successful companies are built on great products. However, it’s essential to identify the specific market segment that the product is intended for. Targeting a specific segment first helps validate the viability of the product. Segmented Approach to Scaling: Companies often begin by focusing on a niche or specific market segment to validate their product’s potential. Tesla’s approach of starting with a premium sports car (the Roadster) targeted at enthusiasts validated the electric car concept before expanding to larger market segments. Balancing Product and Business Model: Validating the product is the first step, but a sustainable business model is equally crucial. Startups can fail not because of the product, but due to a lack of customers and a profitable business model. Scaling involves fine-tuning the business model as the product gains traction. Organizational Design for Scaling: As a company grows, coordinating becomes more complex. The number of possible lines of communication grows exponentially with the increase in employees. Organizational design becomes vital to ensure effective scaling without excessive coordination overhead. Phases of Growth and Focus: The long-term growth process involves shifting focus across various aspects. While the product remains central, different stages of growth require attention to business model refinement and organizational design. Scaling involves a continuous cycle of rebalancing these elements. Evolution of the Product: As the product scales to serve larger segments, it may undergo changes to cater to the needs and preferences of diverse customers. This evolution impacts various aspects, including design, manufacturing, supply chain, distribution, cost structure, and profit centers. Restructuring for Innovation: Scaling often requires significant organizational restructuring to accommodate new strategies and business models. For instance, offering a cheaper version of a product, like Tesla did, necessitates a comprehensive reinvention of multiple aspects of the organization.

Rob’s “The Mom Test” is one of the most actionable books I’ve read about business and startups. It talks about how to conduct customer interviews (even if you’re a noob and an introvert) and evaluate if your product idea is the real Sh*t.

In the first five minutes of the book, he shows you how phrases like

Would you pay for… If I could build… Would you like… forces people to lie and give you fake validation and ego boost.

End result?

7 months of focusing on the wrong idea, thousands of dollars down the drain and crickets instead of customers.

So, I’ve read the entire book and summarized it to give you step-by-step instructions on how to start, conduct, and end interviews.

We’ll break it down to 5 Stages

Stage 1 — Setting the Stage Stage 2 — Getting your Ducks in a Row Stage 3 — What to Avoid like Plague Stage 4 — Diving Deep Stage 5— How to end with a WIN

Let’s get into it.

I think I am at least somewhat more productive than average, and people sometimes ask me for productivity tips. So I decided to just write them all down in one place.

Compound growth gets discussed as a financial concept, but it works in careers as well, and it is magic. A small productivity gain, compounded over 50 years, is worth a lot. So it’s worth figuring out how to optimize productivity. If you get 10% more done and 1% better every day compared to someone else, the compounded difference is massive.

What you work on

It doesn’t matter how fast you move if it’s in a worthless direction. Picking the right thing to work on is the most important element of productivity and usually almost ignored. So think about it more! Independent thought is hard but it’s something you can get better at with practice.

The most impressive people I know have strong beliefs about the world, which is rare in the general population. If you find yourself always agreeing with whomever you last spoke with, that’s bad. You will of course be wrong sometimes, but develop the confidence to stick with your convictions. It will let you be courageous when you’re right about something important that most people don’t see.

We can agree that Isaac Newton didn’t invent gravity. It was here all along, but he gets some credit for naming it and describing it.

And Columbus definitely didn’t discover North America. There had been people living here for tens of thousands of years before he arrived.

After Niels Bohr began describing quantum mechanics, the atomic bomb became inevitable. The laws of physics combined with the game theory of competitive sovereign nations meant that sooner or later, it would be discovered.

On the other hand, pizza, rap music and bean-to-bar chocolate are all inventions. The novelty, cultural insight and persistence it took to craft and share these ideas weren’t inevitable at all.

Scientists mostly discover, engineers and artists invent.

I’m really tired of those articles giving out free promotion tips because most of them are just full of nonsense.

They say things like "Send out emails" or "Try affiliate marketing". But honestly, those tips are too vague and not practical. Where do you even find email addresses for newsletters, and how do you start an affiliate program?

So let’s switch things up I’ll just tell you what we did at Letterly and how many people actually downloaded the app.

But first, let me make something clear:

I’m not talking about ASO. All the numbers I’m sharing already count the people who found us organically. We’re only focusing on Apple stuff, not Android.

Strategy vs. Tactics The difference between a strategy and a tactic lies in their scope, level of detail, and time frame. A strategy is a high-level plan that guides your direction and long-term goals and how you plan on accomplishing them. Tactics, however, are specific actions and methods used to implement your strategy and achieve short-term objectives.

You can think about it like this: strategy is planning, and tactic is doing. Having a strategy without ways to act on it (tactics) is daydreaming, and taking actions with no common goal or plan (strategy) wastes your time.

Let's dive a bit deeper into the differences between the two.

Characteristics of a Strategy Marketing or not, there are three parts to any strategy:

A diagnosis of your challenge.

A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge.

A set of targeted actions is necessary to accomplish the policy.

Depending on the scale of your business, your marketing strategy may include several moving parts, each with different goals. With that said, working on your strategy can become daunting at times.

So, if you're ever feeling overwhelmed about your marketing strategy, refer to these three steps to keep you focused on achieving your objectives.

Characteristics of a Tactic While strategies provide a framework for your overall vision, tactics determine the specific steps taken to execute that vision.

A good tactic should:

Be specific, actionable, and measurable. Align with the overall strategy. Have a relatively short time frame. Depending on your marketing strategy, your tactics may include email marketing campaigns, publishing a blog, or organizing an event.

Now, let's look at digital marketing strategy.