The Importance of Idea Validation Before Developing a Startup

Those who are enthusiastic about entrepreneurship, especially in the form of startups, must have had a business idea. But what is called a business idea is still an idea, it has not been measured and has not been validated.

So it would be natural if the business idea collided with a number of questions such as: (1) Is the idea right on target? (2) Does the spirit and insight in the idea reflect market needs? (3) And last but not least, how to measure market needs so that the resulting product can be used by the public?

Founder & CEO KaryaKarsa Ario Tamat shared his experiences to answer these questions. Ario has been in the startup world since 2011, when he created Ohdio and then founded Wooz.in. His interest in music, work experience in technology and the belief that there was no similar service at that time made Ario quite confident that his products would be accepted by the market. But reality proves all that is not enough.

"Because at that time we assumed we knew the music industry, people would want to use it, and it wasn't in the market yet. But that's all assumptions and in fact no one uses it," said Ario.

The bitter experience brought valuable provisions that not all business ideas, no matter how brilliant we think, can produce products that consumers need. There are several phases that an idea must go through before it becomes a reliable finished product.

Lean startup can be a method that can be taken because this has become a general guide for those who want to set up a startup. Ario describes this method based on his experience in this #TuesdayStartup.

Focus on consumers

Ario sums up Lean Startup as a concept development idea, until the idea is valid and ready to be thrown into the market. What Ario underlines is the focus on consumer growth rather than the business idea itself. Recognizing consumer needs becomes more important than fixating on business ideas in this case.

How to get to know these consumers can vary. The choice can be as simple as distributing a questionnaire via Google Form or in-person interviews to dig deeper into the information. This phase is important because we can get to know more closely what consumers need, what they complain about from the existing services, thereby eroding the level of bias of the business idea that we are carrying.

Ario gave an example of the danger of this bias if there is a facial recognition product and it has been launched to the public but it turns out that in some people with certain physiques it doesn't work. This case only arose because in the manufacture of the technology, the facial samples used only came from the physical appearance of the Caucasian race.

"When you have an idea, it's actually an assumption. As long as you don't have data to prove it's true, it's an assumption," said Ario.

Must be different

If the information needed from consumers has been collected, the form of a business idea can be said to be more mature. But what if there is already a commercial service with the business idea? Ario answered it by looking for loopholes in the existing service.

Almost all services have their own problems to a degree that is not necessarily the same. Our role is to find out what the problem is and how big it is. Without offering a differentiating factor it is almost impossible for business idea owners to compete.

"If there are no problems, you don't have the opportunity to enter. If you just want to make it, that's fine, but what can make your business superior. Problem there are many in the world," joked Ario.

Dare to experiment

An experiment can happen intentionally or not. A digital book project that is a collection of articles about music and technology made by Ario is proof of that. The idea of ​​Karyakarsa itself has been owned by Ario for two years before the platform was launched to the public.

The idea departed from the search for alternative methods for musicians to earn income other than conventional methods. The book he wrote himself turned out to be the main trigger that convinced Ario that KaryaKarsa's business idea could work.

The book, entitled Music, Business, and Technology in Indonesia, managed to attract hundreds of readers and furthermore, within a week there were 10 people who were willing to give money to read the book. Ario pushes his experiment further by creating a platform that can be used for content creators and allows fans of their work to set aside money as a form of appreciation which is currently in the form of KaryaKarsa with a total income of more than IDR 1 billion.

"At that time the assumption was I don't that nobody can, Really people who have follower many, celebrities, or famous people no?” he added.