This post is intended for all of our fellow non-technical founders. We've all been there. We have a great idea but we just can't find the right technical guys to help us validate and move forward. As we progressed through the Lean Startup Challenge over the last 14 weeks, we were struck by how often teams would stagnate or even die out completely because of their perceived inability to proceed without technical resources. We could have been one of them.
While technical resources are incredibly important, there is still a lot you can test, validate, and accomplish simply by being creative and using the resources that you do have. We want to share a few of our lean startup learnings related to moving forward without the full power of tech resources.
There is more than one way to validate an idea
When we were first trying to validate whether designers were interested in our model, we figured we needed to create a basic MVP site. Sure, designers had already confirmed through interviews that they wanted to use our website, but now we had to test if they actually would share their work with us. The only problem? Our part-time technical resources weren't moving as fast as we hoped. Rather than wait around for our website to go up, we called designers and asked them to email us their favorite designs, so that we could share them with potential customers and add them to the website when it went live. After an initial deluge of emails, we knew that our designers really did love the idea and wanted to be involved!
The takeaway here is to really understand what you are trying to validate. Often times, we get caught up believing that we can only prove out our ideas using sophisticated technology. Fortunately, that's usually not the case.
Customers exist in the real world
You don't need a landing page and SEM to determine if your customers like your idea. In fact, for many centuries, customers solely existed in the non-virtual world. If you want to gauge interest or validate an idea, just go out and talk to people. For us, it was actually talking to furniture showrooms, interior designers, and design-oriented consumers. Of course there are always benefits to certain digital methods, but many times, an alternative solution does exist.
And most importantly, customers can pay you in the real world. Don’t use the excuse of not having your full product available as the reason you don’t get paid. Otherwise, how will you know if you’ve actually got a good product?
If all else fails, get creative with existing technology
As we began to think about our first piece to produce and sell, we hit an obstacle. We found a piece that we and many others thought was great. But we had no idea how it would resonate with a bigger audience and also how much we could sell it for. We interviewed our customer segment and industry experts in the area but we were dealing with small sample size. So we instead turned to a glamorous website called Craigslist. We ran tests to gauge response for the piece at different price points, in different markets. Through the tests and interviews we eventually concluded it was a piece to move forward with and also found our initial price point.
Craigslist provided us with the audience to get quick feedback. There’s likely something already on the web that you can leverage to complete your own tests too.
One of my favorite quotes is from legendary Bruins coach John Wooden. He says, "Don't let what you can't do stop you from doing what you can do." Here's the reality: whether you are a technical genius or not, your startup will always face constraints. Be creative and push yourself to find unique solutions.
A special thank you to Bernhard, Todd, Joe, Troy, Shay, Darby, and everyone else that we’ve met with, talked to, and learned from!
