23 :: 3 Experiments to Validate Innovative Ideas

We are back to the gap between generating ideas and investing in their execution when innovating - and how that gap should be filled in. Not really a spoiler alert, right? The answer is validation. Disruptive or incremental, software or hardware, B2B or B2C, any innovative idea must be validated before being taken any further and there are multiple experiments that innovators can use to do it. As usual, here are 3 of my favorites:

1. Interviews 🗨️

First and foremost, there is no way around sitting down and actively listening to potential users, consumers, or customers answering questions about their problems and the existing solutions. Qualitative insights are essential during any validation process. Eventually asking them questions about the actual innovation too, but not without validating problem-solution first. Recommending again The Mom Test book because it’s unskippable before starting to interview for accurate validation.

Note: Surveys or questionnaires can also work as a validation mechanism but do not instigate qualitative feedback, which is critical at this stage. As such, they are not enough to stand alone and should only be used in combination or complement to interviews and/or other experiments.

2. Smoke Test đź’¨

Have you heard of the strategy to “fake it until you make it”? I’m not usually a fan of the principle, but it is quite relevant in the context of innovation’s validation. A smoke test is just that. Presenting a product or service that still does not exist (usually through an ad, emails, or a landing page) followed by a call-to-action that asks the potential user, consumer, or customer to commit some form of value or currency (e.g. personal data with “sign-up with your email to know more” or even money with “pre-order now and receive it in a month”). It’s particularly useful to validate value propositions and the messages used to communicate them through real demand.

3. Picnic in the graveyard 🪦

This one is less common and can be used outside the hypotheses testing process just to learn from others’ experiences, but I still love it as a validation experiment. “Picnicking in the graveyard” is basically about trying to understand why similar innovations (in the same or other industries) have failed. It is easy to be so emotionally (sometimes not only emotionally, if the validation comes too late) invested in an innovative idea that all the potential reasons why it is not a good idea are completely disregarded or not even considered. It might still be worth trying where others failed, but facing the reality of their own stories can also become the difference between moving forward or pressing the stop button.

"Do research on what’s been tried and failed. Many near misses have two out of three values in a feature set combination correct (some just have too many features and it’s less a matter of changing features than deleting a few). If you are going to introduce something that’s “been tried before,” be clear in your own mind what’s different about it and why it will make a difference to your customer."

Sean Murphy

See you next Tuesday! đź‘‹