Ready to start a business?
Here are some tips to help you get started in the right direction…
1. What is your USP?
USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. What can you offer your customer/audience that your competition cannot?
Is there a barrier to entry? Patent? Operations? Audience?
2. What are your main features and benefits?
Now that you mapped out your USP, list the specific features of your offer and how it will benefit your customer.
The Lean Startup
3. What leaps of faith are you making?
What assumptions are you making in your business strategy? For example, are you assuming your audience will be willing to pay extra for a specific benefit? How much creator bias do you have in your own idea?
4. Test
The best way to tell if a good idea will work in real life is just to test it. The Lean Startup model will help you accomplish that for as little cost as possible.
First, create your MVP (Minimum Viable Product). This is the smallest amount of product and work it would take to test the market to see if there is actual interest in your idea. For example, you can create the front end of a website to see if people you market to opt in with their info to be notified of a release or if people are willing to buy pre-orders of your idea.
User Testing
Does a sample size of your ideal audience want to your your product or service? How do they like sampling it/using it? What feedback do they have.
Split Test
Not sure if a change will hurt or help? Can't decide between multiple options? Have a disagreement with a partner? Resolve these problems objectively and confidently with split testing aka A/B Testing.
5. Analyze
Problems?
Use the 5 W's to get to the root cause of the problem. Ask why 5 times.
Is there an actual demand for your idea/MVP? Or do you need to Pivot.
Pivot
Did your MVP not work out the way you expected? Maybe it’s time to make a shift or change. Here are some examples of the various types of pivots:
Zoom-in, focus on a specific feature of your idea.
Zoom-out, include your idea into a bigger project.
Customer segment, target a different audience.
Customer need, target a different problem for your customer.
6. Adjust
Make that pivot, tweak, change or new MVP and test it, analyze and repeat.
Continue to grow your business and explore you start-up type ideas within your company.
