As a Founder, you’ve got an exciting vision for how your solution will make a meaningful difference in the lives of your customers and you’ve been broadly evangelizing that vision.
Terrific! But how well have you tested your solution concept with your prospective customers? What insights have they shared with you beyond a simple “sounds interesting”?
In this post, I’d like to share a Concept Validation tool and process the Evidology Group has developed to build the evidence and insights to support your business.
Done effectively, it can not only save you enormous time and money in product development, it can help you form long-term customer relationships and collect insightful stories for potential new investors and employees.
The Concept Validation Canvas
The Concept Validation Canvas is a powerful tool to help you test your product or service idea. It builds on the traditional Business Model Canvas and flips the perspective upside down from what you’re trying to sell to what customers want to buy.
How to Effectively Use the Concept Validation Canvas
Completing the Concept Validation Canvas involves 3 steps:
- Complete a draft Concept Validation Canvas
- Meet with advisors, mentors and/or consultants (“advisors”) to identify all assumptions, opinions, unknowns, and vague content in the draft Canvas.
- Coached by advisors, hold a series of structured discovery calls designed to collect customer feedback on the items identified in step 2.
Of course, a tool is only as useful as the actionable insights that surface from it. You’ll learn what are truly meaningful differentiators and how to message them in future marketing efforts. You’ll gain valuable evidence in the form of customer advisors and stories to support investor discussions and new employee recruitment efforts. Moreover, these steps will help you recruit early adopter customers to guide your Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Sounds powerful? Contact the Evidology Group and we’ll lead you through the process to achieve rewarding customer discussions. We’ll also share more tools, processes and examples on how to structure effective discovery calls. If you prefer, we can bring our expertise to your organization as an Embedded Executive and spearhead the process ourselves for even deeper insights, saving you precious time.
