A specific method to test a startup idea cheaply and quickly - who knows?

Question

Startups

Here, for an EXISTING product, testing seems to be simple: place an ad online with text, with a good emotional headline, and a beautiful photo. This is taught in training.
But to test a startup / idea that does not exist yet?
You can make a site layout with text describing the idea and social widgets and advertise in VK - and see how many people respond?
How would you test a startup idea before a specific investment of resources / time?
To not hurt for the wasted years

Answer 1

Make a promo page with a description. Post ads on social media.
On the site, make a noticeable button "Subscribe to news".
Analyze the number of viewed ads / the number of visitors / the number of subscribers to the newsletter.

Answer 2

You can describe your idea on some vc.ru or spark.ru, where people will write down their point of view, whether it will take off or not.

Answer 3

Conduct problem interviews with potential users. Find out if they have a problem that your startup solves, if they are willing to pay for solving this problem and how much.

Answer 4

Well, of course you can do some polls and so on. BUT really, as long as you don't have a product, anyway, all these "tests" don't mean anything. You will be forced to make the product itself, another thing is that it can be a trial initial prototype just to check how everything works and give people a poke.
Sometimes virtual prototypes are made, in which there is no functionality, but only an emulation of the functionality, that is, you can use it, but only the interface emulates regular work there.

Answer 5

You can contact the business incubator and see their reaction. You can order social surveys for professionals. You can chat on specialized forums (as advised above).

Answer 6

The specifics of the answer strongly depends on the specifics of the product. What is your audience access, audience size? The more difficult it is to answer questions about the audience, the more difficult it is to test the idea.

• The best test is live communication with potential users. You need to be prepared to ask the right questions and the main thing is to listen, and not rub your point of view. The audience should be such that they would be willing to pay for this product, and not just "interested in everything that happens."
  
• You can try to replace live communication with polls/forums/chats, or better yet, carudfunding platforms where they can at least somehow evaluate the idea.
  
• Competitor analysis is a great way to check if there is even such a problem and the need to solve it. It is better to start checking any idea with an axiom: everything has already been invented before us. It usually does. You need to search well and for a long time, correctly formulate a search query. Then you need to work with users / clients of a competitor - dig a niche for yourself.
  

Answer 7

Advertising will give an answer
But you need to take into account what exactly and in what market you are selling, hence the initial ones change.
For example, you can test a startup on indigo or kickstarter to test its viability, while simultaneously promoting in the media and social networks. And you can advertise the template through search engines, social networks, forums, etc.
In general, it all depends solely on what you are selling.

Answer 8

Here is a little historical background, I beg your pardon, this is the relationship between HP and the idea of ​​​​a home computer by Steve Wozniak, who was a staff member of this company. He felt that he would violate his moral values ​​if he did not offer his development to HP. You can find what HP experts/bosses answered in historical references. As a result, the idea of ​​a home computer found life only in the Apple startup. It was extremely difficult to test your idea on users. they just didn't know what it was. By the way, the first performance in the "circle of his own" also did not find approval. The question is what to do in this case. Looking at competitors is of course an option, but in my opinion "for the benefit of the poor", because. you will always be in the role of catching up. You need to find your chip, your service must give such a "focus", which will be understandable to a simple user. Therefore, forgive me for naivety, start with children, if they find it interesting and the result will interest them, then your service idea is viable: I do not take into account ideas intended for scientists, i.e. with a target audience of 1000 people in Russia.

Answer 9

There is another way. To test the hypothesis, having learned the opinion of friends and acquaintances, first read the book “Ask Mom” (the mom test). The book describes techniques for interviewing people in order to get their opinion as accurately as possible.