Many first-time founders and, sometimes, even experienced entrepreneurs are making a big mistake of nurturing an idea and putting a product first. It is hard to tell how much time and money has been spent on development without testing the market.By Anton Sychov(pictured), start-up funding expert, partner at the EWA European Women Association.
For a number of reasons like being scared to sell and thinking that the product should be 100% ready before launch, founders find themselves in an isolated environment where they exist alone with their product but without clients.
I believe that you should always start with selling a really minimal product or doesn’t even exist to learn from the market.
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SubscribeHow to understand whether your idea will be successful and not spend a single euro on it? I’ve created a step-by-step plan.
Stage 1. Set up a landing page experiment
Sometimes you don’t even need a landing page because you can start collecting leads directly on Facebook and LinkedIn or use a cold approach. But my experience as a founder and advisor, mainly in B2C startups, is telling me that you need a landing page to describe your offer better and collect more qualified leads.
A landing page should be informative, visually attractive, and not overloaded with details. It is important to get attention from the first screen. Remember, you have three seconds to interest a potential client!
The landing page can be divided into several parts:
The first one is your face. Goal: attract and grab attention in the first seconds of the “introduction.”
- Logo: creates visual recognition.
- Contact: increases trust.
- Title (!): sparks interest. Selling title, created using one of the popular 4U techniques, useful, relevant, unique, and ultra-specific.
- Subheading: increases the client’s issues.
- Image: evokes an emotion fitting the idea.
- Button with CTA: converts to the next funnel step.
- Form: prompts to enter data.
- Benefits: highlights 2-3 cool idea features.
The second one is your logic. Goal: convince the user that the offer has great value. Use content that confirms benefits, closes objections, provides facts, and convinces to leave feedback.
You can do it yourself or find a freelancer on UpWork or Fiverr. But don’t create a whole website, remember that you need only one page, and you don’t want a potential client to wander around exploring the website.
Creating a landing page will take from 0 to 300 euros + inspiration.
Stage 2. Define the target audience and Select the Channel
The first task here is to determine the audience. Draw a portrait of a B2C client: from basic characteristics (gender, age, location) to interests, value , and issues (tasks that the client wants to solve). The B2B portrait is slightly different: the business size and the position of the decision-maker. But not that different, at the end of the day you are selling to people.
It is important to choose those marketing channels where you will definitely find your audience. You already know, social media is the go-to option for B2C and B2B. Blogs and content marketing are best for B2B, and influencer marketing for B2C. But not everything is so simple: you have to choose the right platform.
For example, promoting on Instagram and TikTok makes sense if you have a younger audience focused on visuals. According to Statista, most of its global audience is people aged 18-34. LinkedIn has a business audience, almost 60% of whom are aged 25-34.
Channel choice is only 50% of success. What’s next? Launch of an ad campaign. The approach depends on the channel specifics. Let’s take FB and influencer marketing as an example.
- In FB ad campaigns, the main thing is to set the targeting correctly: segment by location, gender, age, and interests. By selecting multiple interests for the same user, you can narrow your audience and find interested customers.
- Influence marketing. Find mutual understanding with a blogger who got an impact on your TA. It will be easier (and cheaper) to negotiate with a microleader than with a media star. Mutual advertising or paying with your product or service could give you the best return on marketing investments.
Your expenses will be from 0 to 100 euros + budget (no more than 150 euros).
Stage 3. Working With Leads
Working with leads means working closely with potential customers to get contact information: phone numbers, email addresses, and names. It is a great opportunity to hear first-hand opinions about the product, specifically, the idea.
Yes, I’m talking about selling a non-existent product. The product is pending development. You will do it only when you sell it! It is the main point of testing a business idea. But what if the audience wants to buy a product (nonexistent!) right now? Or worse, if it doesn’t… Stop panicking and move on to the next step.
By the way, you will not spend a single euro here.
Stage 4. Adapting to Feedback
You can expect three scenarios:
- Audience is ready to buy. What to do: reply that you have added them to your e-mail list and that the product is in creation. Start developing a strategy.
- Audience doubts the product’s value and expresses their opinion. What to do: continue research to find out the real needs of the TA, make changes according to feedback, and test again.
- Audience is not ready to buy. What to do: Forget the idea and come up with a better one. And repeat.
We live in a world where it’s not the ideas that matter but the implementation. That’s why, instead of nurturing an idea for a long time, just test it. And after 2-3 weeks, you will know if it works. After all, the only essential resource is time. Why fuss with an idea for years when you can start fulfilling your dream today?
