A business can be broken down into 2 major components, the Problem and the Solution. The best way to increase any chance of success is to validate each one of them before you start spending time, effort, and money on anything. As a first step, we will attempt to validate the Problem. After you have the confidence that the problem you identified is real we will proceed with validating the Solution. At this stage, you will also start building an MVP or prototype in order to show it to your potential users. Use this template to guide you through this exciting journey. Plan your tasks with it and come back every now and then to add new ideas. Good luck. The world is waiting for your next product.

✅ Problem Validation

Step 1

<aside> 💡 In order to validate the problem we will break the problem into 2 parts: the Audience (for whom are you solving the problem) and the Pain Point (what is the problem you have identified).

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Step 2

<aside> 💡 The problem you identified has some hidden assumptions. These assumptions are crucial because they can potentially break your business model. Please identify at least 5 of these assumptions and write them down in a sentence. Indicate whether you can test them yourself or require external help (from a friend, specialist, or agency). Also, outline a strategy to test each assumption, and define the minimum criteria for the test. Usual assumptions here are that there is such a group of people or that they have (are aware of) such a problem. After you have these assumptions it’s time to test them. Go out in the world follow the testing strategy and your chosen criteria and determine if the assumption is true or false.

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Assumptions

Step 3

<aside> 💡 If you find an assumption that is invalide, you need to pivot your idea. Go back to step 2 (the Audience and Pain Points table) and change either the Audience or the Pain Point. You can also copy the value that is not changed so you always have a full row completed and a history of your pivots.

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<aside> 🎉 Now that you validate all your assumptions you can confidently say that you identified a real problem. Congratulations. You are on to something real here. All that is left is to come up with a solution in the next section.

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✅ Solution Validation

Step 4

<aside> 💡 We will build on the problem validation part and add the new solution part. In the beginning, copy the latest values of the Audience and the Pain Points and add the Solution (what is the solution you want to build). You are at an MVP level so your solution should be simplified.

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