Most of the time people come up with outstanding product ideas that may stand to benefit humankind remarkably. But all of the product ideas are not embraced by the world and majority of them fail miserably. People tend to spend a huge amount of capital, time and effort on ideas that may not see any light and perish resulting in tremendous squander. So it becomes essential to validate the product idea through various means and understand the potential impact. Here we have listed some of the simple yet powerful ways that can help in realizing the worth of the idea.
Prior existence
Many times what we think as a new idea might exist in different forms in the market and it becomes necessary to know what kind of competition prevails with the same product. Typical search places such as google, youtube, and app stores would provide this information when researched properly. The effort invested in this exercise will greatly reduce pain because an existing product of the same idea will provide a lot of details and clear direction in our approach. In case someone finds that there is no competition, it may increase his conviction and self-assurance.
Audience
It is highly imperative to analyze the audience for our product because the idea may be great but the intended audience may not be equipped enough to consume it. There are various factors such as age, geography, country of residence, technological exposure, income parity and culture that play an important role in the success of the product. We may also have to consider governmental regulations in validating our idea as some countries tend to ban things unexpectedly.
Social Media
People spend a lot of their time on Social media and they act as a goldmine for understanding trends, issues, preferences and hot topics. These data will indirectly help in validating the product suitability and reception. It would be beneficial for the product owner to analyze the social media discussions, comments, and reactions related to his idea, most of the time this will help to visualize the big picture and strengthen his belief and confidence.
Product Reach
Building a product might be the easier task when compared to reaching the product to the people, hence during product validation, it becomes vital to ascertain the ways with which the product can be taken to the audience. Keyword research using tools would help in this aspect because if there exists a search volume for the keyword related to the idea, that would bring organic traffic resulting in great success. But otherwise, the product idea itself may have to be reconsidered.
Test product
Once the product owner has validated the above factors and has strengthened his belief about the idea, the next step would be to test the waters with a minimum viable product. Because, despite all assurances, expectations may backfire leading to huge losses. Hence the product should be released with basic features to gauge the reception, once the product patronage picks up and shows a clear direction, subsequent releases can be planned with full-blown features.
So there are multiple factors that need to be analyzed, measured and interpreted before we finalize a product for implementation, only then the effort can be channelized in the right path to achieve success.