What I learnt validating a startup idea in 6 days with $0

Want to start a business? Great, I put together a simple, very doable checklist for you.

• An idea/concept for a business — You can read my post “What No One Tells You About How to Generate & Choose a Business Idea” if you need help with this.
• Time (this one is very important)
• A medium/distribution channel that will help you reach your target market
• A WiFi connection, a laptop and/or phone line (does not have to be decent)
• A basic understanding of how to use social media (could even just be SMS)
• Ability to think and jot down your ideas in a comprehensive fashion.

And you are all set!

Now is the time you probably think I have gone off my rocker. But what if that is really all you need? You’d be robbing yourself of the ability to build something in such a simple way.

For a long time, I too thought I required more to start a business.

I was even actually knee deep in coding my very own web application before I realized no one would want to use it.

How I had fantastically wasted my time is beyond me.

However, I learnt one very important thing during that time: Whether you actually have a product in hand does not matter. A business is successful if it has the ability to sell something for a profit. So theoretically, all you really need to do is test your business concept’s ability to sell.

And while I think most people understand this, I have seen lots of people feeling the need to build something before taking it out there.

Just look at KickStarter.com. There are a ton of concepts on the website that are just that, concepts. Take the example of OGarden Smart: Grow An Indoor Garden of 90 Fruits & Veggies. In 20 hours, users pledged over $150KUSD to the project, exceeding OGarden’s goal of $15K. Now, if that product was fake or not, no one would really know (not trying to bash OGarden, great idea). The point I am getting to is that the concept was so powerful that over a thousand backers pledged their real, hard earn money to the project.

Instead of more theoretical bullshit, here is an actual example of how I actually went about conceptualizing and testing a business idea I had lazily named “CollegePal”.

And in the spirit of human vulnerability, I will say there are things I could have done better. But you know what, users actually signed up — there was some need for this damn thing.

I was just not sure if I wanted to chase it for the lack of a proper business model and vision for it. As I mentioned in my first article, not all ideas are worth pursuing and this was one of the experiences that helped me learn that.

The example of CollegePal

Day 1: Finding a problem to solve.

Pen and paper in hand.

I set my sights on a community near me, Georgia Tech.

After all, starting with a community was a great way to ensure the problem I was solving was faced by multiple people who had something in common — their Institution.

I outlined a bunch of domain specific questions* that could help me understand the major problems Georgia Tech Students were going through and how they dealt with these problems.

It took a lot for me to muster up the courage and do it, but I eventually found myself interviewing students on campus, jotting down notes and learning a lot in the process.

*for the sake of this article, I will not go into all the questions, but feel free to email me if you want to know how I wrote investigative questions to help me conduct a root-cause analysis to gain insightful, unbiased information that can be acted upon.

Day 3: Making sense of my mess.

After a day of interviewing about 10 students, I was buried under a lot of data. And so, I sat down, digitized the data, and tried to make sense of my mess. A useful technique for me was to use affinity diagrams. And there are many techniques to help you understand your surroundings and find what you are looking for. The world of Information Architecture is very useful for this.

Anyway, here are some of the insights I found (and you can skip through it if you’d like, but I found these findings rather interesting):

You see, Georgia Tech Students are stressed. *Mind blown sideways*

Well, on top of very obviously stressful curriculum, Freshmen were particularly stressed because of the inefficient information flow within the institution.

They were often lost about the university’s policies, how to choose their classes strategically or even where to go for certain things.

Other problems included:

• The inability to adjust to hectic schedules and pin down proper time management tactics for assignments
• The psychological effects of wanting to be the best in a university where everyone was the best in their high schools
• The worst problem of all, in my opinion, social isolation. (This can be plainly observed by anyone who spends 1 day in campus)

No matter how small, these problems pile up as unsolvable for some students leading to depression and even suicide in some cases.

On the flip side, students who made it onto being seniors had a much less miserable time within the system. They were able to maneuver around it even without full knowledge of universities policies. They knew how to manage their time. And of course, were much more settled socially and psychologically.

Day 5: I think I have an idea. Let’s test it.

The problem could have really been solved in a variety of ways such as a proper freshmen’s guide to college (which probably no one would read), or even yet another senior-freshman mentorship program.

But considering the problem, I found building a more holistic social platform was very important. Mentorship programs in itself foster an imbalance of power. It would instead help if stressed students could find other students who are in the same situation and were willing to share their stresses and insecurities. This is what I found the Georgia Tech Community of Students were severely lacking.

And so, the concept was to match Students with a dedicated counterpart they would be assigned to based on a variety of factors such as their major, how involved they were willing to be with their CollegePal’s, etc. And if they found it was not a good match, we would try to understand why and help them find another.

Was it the best solution? God knows! I needed to test it.

And so, I set up a landing page on free website maker (Webflow, Wix, whatever works). I then marketed it in an online GA tech group (which was totally free, btw). This helped me gather initial interest from Students without actually building much at all.

Of course, I was upfront about the fact that the concept was in its initial phases and that I was gauging demand before officially launching the service. And in that way it helped take any pressure of off having a product.

Day 6: Does anyone want this?

With just 1 online post marketing the product, within just 2 days, I got 5 users sign up. Not great, but really not that bad at all considering the pathetic effort I put into marketing the idea.

What I learnt

Well 6 days of conceptualizing and trying to sell this made a lot more sense than 6 months of developing it.

But, you know what made it so, so much harder? For one, putting myself out there so intensely for 6 days straight.

And I suspect this is why it is so hard for most people. The possibility of failing, being criticized for their ideas, or just the thought of random social interaction. At the end though, it was all in my head.

It was so valuable to start putting the idea out there in its very early stages for so many reasons other than simply seeing if there was a demand for it. This included:

• Testing the distribution channels

It got me to really think and test out the ways in which I could effectively reach my target audience.

• Testing the value proposition

You can sell 1 product in a variety of ways. To get to a closer product-market fit, testing how the idea is marketed or sold in a variety of ways helps.

• Outsource thinking about the idea

I was asked all these useful questions about the product that I myself have not figured out. And this is great because you will realistically never be able to think of everything. You might as well get other people do it for you help you in a more targeted way. This way, you know what you have to figure out to make it a useful product.

• Any useful feedback at all

Sometimes you are on the right track, but need to pivot. Also, sometimes our verbiage makes it seem like we did not truly understand our target market. And this is where I was really able to speak to my customers to understand that.

So my question to you is, what’s stopping you from starting your business in 6 days? If there is something stopping you, write me about it and maybe I can help you get out of your rut.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In light of companies such as Theranos and the Fyre festival please be aware about the difference between testing a concept that can be realistically built versus over-promising on a value proposition that simply cannot be delivered. This article is in no way endorsing deceiving consumers, but instead building leaner to ensure businesses are built for success.

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