How to Validate Your Startup Idea
The Four Validation Gates all Startups Must Pass Through
The Four Validation Gates all Startups Must Pass Through
by Tim Parsa
Before you reserve a domain for a startup idea, answer these four questions. Is it pitch-worthy? Is it join-worthy? Is it earn-worthy? Is it prepay-worthy?
Validating a startup idea is answering this question: is this a startup? What's a startup? A startup is a machine that turns Founder Energy into Cashflow from the sale of a tech-powered solution. The goal in validating a startup idea is to find out fast if the idea is a good use of your Founder Energy.
Building an MVP or chasing VCs before you pass your startup through these four gates is failure mode and will resign you to the 90%+ of failed founder/startup/VC bets.
Passing your idea through these four gates will lead to startup success because you will know that your idea is attractive to a community willing to exert some effort to get access to it, either by earning access or paying for it. If you can convert your Founder Energy into cashflow at the idea stage, then congratulations! You have a startup worth pursuing.
If you can't, then just start again with the first gate, either improving your pitch for your idea or starting the validation process with another idea.
I built Slyk IO to make it easy to validate the answers to all four questions before you reserve yet another domain for a startup idea (or start looking for a co-founder, hiring a dev shop, or working on a VC pitchdeck). Don't waste your Founder Energy!
Can you record a 45s video that explains the potential upside of your startup, such that it persuades someone to sign up to get more info? Better yet, can you make a short-form video weekly that expresses your passion for solving the problem that your startup will address? Can you build an audience that you can convert into a community?
Your pitch video is your Slyk home video. Or, put another way, your Slyk is a Startup Pitch that anyone interested or persuaded can join and share. If you share your Slyk with friends and family and your social media, and they join and share it, then you have passed through the second gate, from audience to community. Two more gates, and you might have a startup worth dedicating some of your precious Founder Energy to.
3. Is it earn-worthy?
Startups solve problems with technology. Your pitch expresses the problem and how you are going to solve it using technology. Your community has joined your Slyk because they believe in you as a founder or because they suffer from or otherwise understand the problem you are setting out to solve, or because they are potential investors who are excited by the prospect of a startup that can solve the problem.
Can you pitch and price your startup solution so that someone is motivated to earn access to it, i.e. help grow/build your startup, in exchange for access? Can you record a short persuasive video that describes in more detail how your solution will work, the technology it will use, and why it's a 10X better solution than what's currently available to solve the problem? This is where you set up your Slyk's ecommerce offering, pricing your solution in the settlement currency of your choice, fiat or crypto.
Will members of your community earn access to your solution by helping you build and grow? This is where Slyk's free growth tools come into play. It can be as simple as rewarding your Startup Community members for sharing your idea on social media, i.e. web2 sharing tasks automatically tracked and validated and rewarded by Slyk. Or you can set level-up tasks that you manually verify and reward using Slyk, such as warm intros, team referrals, or help promoting your idea to startup communities, such as indie hackers, product hunt, alternative to, app rater and more.
If the members of your Slyk Startup Community earn your rewards and redeem it for access to your solution, then you have passed through the third validation gate, you have a persuasive startup pitch that has formed a community who will help you build and grow in exchange for access to your solution.
If your idea cannot pass through this gate, then you need to iterate on your solution video, your pricing, the rewards you offer, your tasks, and/or all of the above. Or maybe you need to go back to the first gate and start again with a different startup idea.
4. Is it pre-pay-worthy?
Can you pitch and price your startup solution (even if not yet built) such that someone is willing to pay for it, not with rewards earned, but with cash? This indicates they really want access to what you are building. Remember: Startups turn founder energy into cashflow, that's the entire point of a startup. It's a business! If members of your community are paying you for early access or lifetime access or some other sort of access to your startup solution, then congratulations! You have a minimum viable startup that's worth pursuing.
If not, then you need to iterate on pricing, your solution video, or to grow your community. Or maybe you need to try something else, a different idea that's more worth expending your precious and scarce Founder Energy.
Don't bother registering a domain until you've validated your startup idea with Slyk. Building an audience, community, and growing fast with real traction from users who care is also the traction that all #VCs want to see. So don't reserve a domain or work on your pitch deck or reach out to VCs or apply to Y Combinator until you pass your startup through the four validation gates to see if you have a Minimum Viable Startup.
© 2021
Fintech Server Global Inc.
