Classified Posting
Explain and offer your future service through a classified ad
Market Demand Testing
Strategies to ensure there is a market for your customer's problem
Explore these experiments in the Validation Patterns card deck.
Compare experiments and choose what to test next with your team.
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Closed-Ended Surveys
Survey specific performed behaviors and habits in potential customers
Cold Calling
Gauge interest from prospects with whom you have no prior contact
Collect Pre-orders
Allow users to place an order for an item which has not yet been released
Concierge
Personally deliver your service to test product satisfaction
Conjoint Analysis
Statistically estimate consumers' psychological trade-offs through surveys
Crowdfunding
Fundraise for product development or production
Data Mining
Crunch and combine data to discover trends in market and user behavior
Dry Wallet
Simulate a 'pay now' experience
Event
Arrange a live event to gauge customer interest
Fake door testing
Pretend to provide a product or feature without actually developing it
Feature Stub
Design the smallest thing possible that might invalidate your hypothesis
Five People Who Are In
If you cannot find five, your market is too small or too hard to reach
High Hurdle
Make the user experience more difficult to use to gauge keen interest
Mashup
Assemble a product by piecing together third-party products
Offer a Sample
Create a teaser for your full product experience
One Night Stand
Probe demand with a temporary working solution
Physical Before Digital
Sell a physical version before creating its digital equivalent
Product-Market Fit Survey
Ask users how they would feel if they could no longer use a product
Provincial
Run a test on a very small sample before launching world-wide
Run Test Ads
Test several value propositions to see which converts better
Sales Pitch
Present the sales pitch of your product to a potential customer
Single-Feature Product
A reduced product solving one specific problem for one specific niche
Spoof Landing Pages
Build one or more one-page sites that advertise your (fictional) product
Trends and Keyword Analysis
Analyze trends and habits to validate existing interests
Video Demo
Simulate a working product through a recorded video walkthrough
Wizard of Oz
Use human power to fake automation of complex tasks
Agree to Switch
Test the strength of competing solutions
Competitive Analysis
Identify market opportunities and threats
Customer Discovery Program
Recruit reference customers as discovery partners
Discovery Survey
Gather user insights and needs through targeted surveys
Follow-up Meeting
Request a meeting to solidify evidence
Letter of Intent
Ask prospects to sign a non-binding contract to pay
Referral Program
Evaluate customer willingness to refer friends
Sales Force Feedback
Gauge market demand through your sales team
Social Media Listening
Monitor social media for trends and opinions
User Test Competing Products
Learn from the UX of others
Important for this playbook
Don’t build something that nobody wants
Why would you build a product if nobody will buy it when you’re done?
Once you have spoken to users and validated that the problem exists, the next step is explore wehtehr there is a large enough market to justify taking the idea further. Some users might agree that this is a problem worth solving. But are there enough of them to make up a market for your product?
Are there enough users to make up a market for your product?
Where will your users come from, what segment of users are more profitable, and how much revenue might lie in the market opportunity?
When validating market demand, you will need to research and analyzez both existing and sibling market sizes and potential demand for your idea.
By gathering information about the potential market, you will be able to make educated guesses as to the size of your target audience and how many customer you can acquire. One goal might be to establish a baseline as input to your future business plan as well as potential pricing points and models for your product.
Explore these experiments in the Validation Patterns card deck.
Compare experiments and choose what to test next with your team.
$129 · Printed deck + digital edition
Get your deck!