How to validate your startup idea with a simple framework without spending any money!

1. IMPRENDITORIALITA’ E STRATEGIE
Laurea Magistrale in Sviluppo Economico e dell’Impresa
ALESSANDRO BIGGI

2. 2
ELEVATOR PITCH

3. 3
Describe your business idea in the time of an elevator ride
🚠

4. 4
Guess who?
1. SIMPLY DEFINE YOURSELF
Introduce what you by explaining your goals

5. 5
We solve [problem] by providing[advantage],
to help [target] accomplish[target’s goal].
2. STARTING FROM PROBLEM
Depending on the stage you’ve reached and your type of business, you might follow it up
with a second sentence about your business model:
We make money by charging [customers] to get [benefit].

6. 6
"<Your product name> is X for Y. Only better."
3. X FOR Y
Where X is pretty notorious product & Y is your market target.
Then you have to quickly explain how you tackle your specific market.

7. 7
Isn’t it a royal pain to keep the files on your home and work computers and
mobile devices synchronized and backed up all the time?
4. QUESTION YOUR AUDIENCE
Our software works in the background and takes care of that for you in the
cloud, like magic.

8. 8
PITCH YOUR IDEAS

9. 9
IDEA VALIDATION

10. 10
“If your startup failed, it’s because it didn’t solve a tier 1 problem for a
large enough audience .”
VALIDATING THE DEMAND FOR YOUR PRODUCT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING.

11. 11
So, how do I know if my idea is good enough?
WITH THE 0€ FRAMEWORK
💸

12. 12
Write down the problem, not a specific solution
0€ FRAMEWORK
You want to be able to write down your problem in a simple statement.
- It’s impossible to follow up with customers once they leave a restaurant
- It’s hard to determine which customers will churn before they actually do
- It’s too hard to design professional-quality graphics for social media
1
EXAMPLES

13. 13
Determine if it’s a tier 1 problem or not
0€ FRAMEWORK
The problem you’re looking to solve is one of the top 3 problems your
potential customers are experiencing.
2
BUT HOW DO YOU VALIDATE THAT YOUR PROBLEM IS ACTUALLY A TIER 1 PROBLEM?

14. 14
0€ FRAMEWORK
First you need to know who might typically buy your product.
Company size: 10–50 people
Role: CEO or CTO
Location: Italy
Industry: Travel, Technology & Hospitality
You then want to come up with a list of 20–50 prospects who meet this criteria.
BUILD A BASIC PROFILE
2.1
👔

15. 15
0€ FRAMEWORK
Connect with all of the prospects you find with a message like this:
- Be short and to the point so
you don’t waste their time
- Include a specific time when
you want to talk so you avoid
email ping pong
- Reach out to 3x the # of
prospects you actually want
to talk to.
2.2

16. 16
0€ FRAMEWORK
Before your first call, you want to come up with about 10 questions
to ask them. The entire outcome of the call is to validate:
- They experience the problem
- How painful it is for them (i.e. is it a tier 1 problem?)
- How they solve the problem now
- Would they pay for a solution to the problem
Never, ever build a startup that solves a “nice-to-have-fixed” problem.
People will use your product but never pay for it.
KEY TAKEAWAY
2.2
📞

17. 17
Properly determine existing solutions
0€ FRAMEWORK
Ask: “so how do you handle that today?”
Generally speaking, you want to solve a problem where there are already
other companies trying to solve that problem too. Most times that verifies
you have a large enough market with a tier 1 problem.
3

18. 18
Look for pain in existing solutions
0€ FRAMEWORK
If they use a product, what do they dislike about it? What is it missing?
What do they need in that product to make their job easier/faster?
4
It’s OK to have feature parity as a baseline, but that should only be 80% of
your product. There should be at least 20% that’s better
YOU NEED TO HAVE A BETTER PRODUCT

19. 19
Verify there’s a budget for a solution
0€ FRAMEWORK
Schedule another call with the interesting prospects and ask them what are
their thoughts about pricing (don’t be specific). They can have 3 answers:
5
- They’ll come right out and say they won’t pay for it
- They’ll be somewhere in the middle
- They’ll say they would pay for it ✅
❌
❌
ask why?
great, how much?
AT LEAST 40-50% SHOULD BE WILLING TO PAY

20. 20
Use those prospects to define your roadmap
0€ FRAMEWORK
Assuming you solve a tier 1 problem that enough people will pay for, you
now have a somewhat captive audience
6
You now have a built-in audience you can leverage to get feedbacks on your
product and some of them might become your first paying customers.
NEXT STEPS

21. 21
PREPARE YOUR IDEA

22. 22
1. What are you going to build?
2. What are the primary features? What will it generally look like?
3. Who needs it? Why? What are they using right now?
4. Why is this a good idea?
5. Who are your competitors?
6. How will you get users?
ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS
Write a short 2 pages document answering these questions