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Hi LeeRoy,<br />
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First of all, great job creating a possible solution in the form of a product that will help others and hopefully get you into the Fastlane, separating your time from money.<br />
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You've got a great idea, you want to build a prototype to eventually launch a product that nobody else has created, because you think there is a gap in your target market - a need that you can fulfill. <br />
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It seems like you're concerned about investing a lot of money into a prototype, without any real guarantee of whether or not your idea will 'work'. Is this correct?<br />
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Your concerns are valid, and there always risks to entrepreneurship. However, if you flip your thinking on its head a little bit, you'll be able to mitigate a lot of that risk by minimizing your upfront investment until you're sure that your product will be a hit.<br />
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Sound good?<br />
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Let's help you <b>validate </b>your idea first, and gather some real data on the actual<b> demand </b>from your target market, to see if people will actually pull out their wallets to buy, once you've invested all the money to prototype, produce and market your product. You want to have that information up front, so you're not flying blind until launch day, just hoping and praying that your <b>hypothesis </b>(i.e. market doesn't have this product, market needs this product) is in fact, correct.<br />
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The unique idea, that nobody has ever created before, is far less important than a product that fills a proven market demand. You don't need to be unique, but you do need people to buy.<br />
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Where does this particular audience hang out online? Are there specific forums, facebook groups, subreddits where they congregate? Do they follow certain blogs, youtube channels, twitter feeds or instagram influencers?<br />
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How can <b>you </b>get in front of your test audience, and get their eyeballs onto some sort of a pre-launch test offer, to gauge interest and gather some real market data?<br />
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You could throw up a simple landing page with just a <b>headline </b>and a few product benefits and have a single email opt-in for a free or heavily discounted promotion at launch. Think of it as your own mini kickstarter campaign. You're not collecting money, just email addresses. Can you get anyone to sign up for free?<br />
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If not, you might have to make some tweaks to your product idea, the problem it solves, or your messaging. Or you might have to scrap the idea and start over.<br />
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It's going to be a frustrating exercise, but you're going to save boatloads of money and it's how you are going to safeguard against the risk of unknown demand.<br />
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If you want to go one step further than a simple text-based landing page, consider hiring a 3d modeler or even just an illustrator/artist from Upwork or Fiverr and have them create a little mock-up image of what the product looks like. It doesn't have to be a full prototype design, the final product can look completely different. It's just to get a visual concept that can get people excited and see if they're willing to convert.<br />
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Does this make sense? There are many other ways you can validate your idea (surveys, etc.) before taking it to prototyping and production. I know this isn't as fun or sexy as getting something built and getting to touch and feel the physical manifestation of your idea, but instead what I'm offering is a real, predictable path to success.<br />
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The first idea might not work, that's ok. The more you interact with your market, the more ideas you'll have, and <b>you'll know </b>when you have a winner.<br />
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Let me know how else I can help.
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Thanks a lot for your response. That’s really helpful I didn’t think about the MVP before actually and can see why it’ll be a good use to get the feedback before spending tons of money.<br />
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I know how to reach the customers because there’s popular trade magazines here for tradesman whereby you can pay to advertise, I believe that would be the best route to market.<br />
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Getting some basic designs knocked up would be smart too thanks, I’ll have a look on those two platforms tomorrow morning.</div>
