Let’s say you have an info product idea.
When do you really have to validate it? What aspects do you have to validate?
Validating for a list vs a market
If you have a list and your idea is congruent with that list and you’ll be selling pretty much exclusively to that list, then you’d be crazy not to see what they have to say when the cost to do so is an email or two and reading responses.
Right?
But what about “new” ideas. Or ideas that are potentially very valid, just not to your list? What if you’re comparing ideas and you want to account for the potential market size of an idea vs what email replies on your list say.
You can misjudge list validating
What about when you get some tiny detail wrong in the way you measure “interest” from your list?
You stick it in a postscript at the bottom of your email and people don’t read it.
You unintentionally make the idea vague and hard to grasp instinctively.
Or you write, “hit reply if you’re interested,” when you should have written,
Hit reply and let me know either way – is this a good idea, bad? Why? Your thoughts would mean the world to me.
Strong postscript call to action (when validating to your list)
Even if you get the execution on the “ask” right, can’t your list be wrong?
I think of the made up anonymous quote often attributed to Henry Ford, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
What if your audience follows you for your expertise and its your responsibility to guide them, not the other way around?