Part 2 of a 2-part series.
In case you missed it, be sure to read the first part of this 2-part article, How to Launch Your Brand-New Business Idea: Part 1.
Are you ready to turn your creative new business idea into an actual startup business? In part 1 of this 2-part series I discussed how to determine what problem your solution is solving for customers; how to lock down the details of your business idea; and how (and why) to embrace the "lean startup" business model. Now you're ready to start building and testing.
4. Build a Simple Website to Measure Interest and Impact
In today’s world, many new business ideas are online-driven. A simple but attractive website with some basic marketing around it can help you gauge the potential of your business idea.
These days you don’t have to write a single line of code to create a website; just use Tumblr or Wordpress to make it happen. Both platforms are easy to use, and feature an amazing array of gorgeous templates for you to use — many for free and some for a small fee!
To better illustrate the practical application of my advice, I thought I would share some of my own projects with you in this article. I will tell you how I came about a problem, what my solution is, and what I am doing to validate my business idea — one by one. I love to conceptualize and create, and potentially start something that can grow into something bigger, and for this I use the same thought process I explained above to validate my ideas.
Pilot Needed
My partner Stefano Khan is a passionate pilot, and he was using 20 different pilot job search sites to scan the market for interesting pilot job offers. As I saw him struggling to go through them one by one, I had the idea to create Pilot Needed.
Pilot Needed is a pilot job search site that unifies all job sites into one convenient feed. The Wordpress website automatically imports new results from all its sources and auto-posts them to Twitter and Facebook. Without any effort the website reached 100 visitors a day within the first three months.
Pilot Needed
EventVenueFinder
Once an event planner, always an event planner. Even though I am not actively working in it any more, the event planning industry still fascinates me and I love to take a peek at wedding blogs and event news every once in a while. I realized that event planners, event hosts, and couples planning weddings could use a better platform to find event venues.
In just two days I created the name and logo for EventVenueFinder, booked the domain name, and built a website based on Wordpress. I also set up Twitter and Facebook accounts ready for use. Now I just need a little bit of free time to work on it and see if I can start to get some traction.
EventVenueFinder
Spice
When I moved to the South of France last summer I immediately fell in love with the gorgeous coastline, the upscale crowd, and the chic lifestyle. And I had a revelation: it’s the perfect place to launch a concierge company! I did some research, and discovered none of the existing companies were able to match my ideas and service standards.
Using the right kind of compelling text and imagery, I built a Wordpress website for Spice that represented the type of service I hoped to offer; and within a few months got the opportunity to manage several luxury properties and propose my concierge services to their upscale clientele.
Spice
I think you get the point. Create something that represents that core feature we nailed down earlier. Make it stick, make it intriguing, make it something your clients will love.
5. Choose the Right Marketing Mix for Your Business Idea
Because it is not the main point of this article, but is definitely interconnected, I am going to dip into the topic very briefly:
Marketing is what brings customers to you.
Your product/service and company is what makes customers stay.
Do not make the mistake of launching your website, running ads on Google, and then solely relying on this traffic to validate your business idea. What you need to do is find people who love your product and your company. You need to find people who will choose your brand over another, people who go out and tell others about how great you are.
In order to reach this kind of customer, you have to use alternate routes:
- Use social media to gain attention for your business idea (pick three of the most effective social networks and use them avidly to engage with your audience).
- Give back to the community (that can be in a literal sense such as donating time or money to a good cause, or more abstract like running a free blog on business advice; it should be something you are doing free of charge, from the heart).
- Identify friends and family who can amplify your marketing messages (understand that family and friends may support your cause, but do not expect them to rave about and become evangelists).
- Understand the type of customer you have, what they care about, and how you can reach them; be creative and genuine in your marketing, provide value (price, quality, convenience), build relationships, and seek feedback on your performance.
All of these efforts combined will help you create not only a solid clientele, but a tribe around your company.
6. Set Goals, Work Toward Them, and Evaluate the Results
As much as creating a tribe is probably the ultimate achievement for any brand, business is business, and numbers need to live up to your expectations in order to move forward. Once you’ve got your product defined, your basic website set up, and your marketing plan laid out, don’t fail to determine your business (test) goals.
From day one of your launch, determine the following:
- A set time frame for your trial run, be it three months of a full year (use your best judgement)
- A set of concrete goals you need to achieve (e.g., number of visitors, amount of sales, number of customer enquiries, etc.)
If you should meet your goals, that’s excellent! You’re on to something that could really work! This is when you go back to your business model canvas, bring back those extended product features, and expand your marketing plan.
Lastly, Never Stop Changing
Sometimes in order to reach your goal you must adjust your course slightly and steer the ship in a different direction. Don’t let that get to you, because getting it right the very first time around is very rare.
Instead, use the knowledge you gained from your trial run to improve your product and solidify your case. Change is evolution, and making that change is the first step to reaching your goal.
Recently, we made a change in our strategy as well. Mevvy, our app discovery platform, relaunched just a few days ago with a slightly different concept: we used the data and insights we’d been collecting for the past three years and gave app discovery a new twist: we now categorize our apps by interest groups! Now our visitors can browse apps for entrepreneurs, pilots, moms, music lovers, and more, making it easier to discover apps that fit their profile.
Because this is a new concept for us as well, we’re again following the “lean” methodology, and for the time being we’re using Tumblr to host our platform.
We’d love for you to check out Mevvy’s new website and have you join our Twitter and Facebook community!
Mevvy
P.S. If you are planning on building an app, read my previous article on the whole process, A 12-Step Guide to Building Your Very First Mobile App.
Read part 1 of this 2-part article, How to Launch Your Brand-New Business Idea: Part 1.
