There is empirical evidence all over the continent of failed starts ups. So many ideas that would have probably turned into multinationals, have failed to stand the test of time in the market place. In every failed business, however, is an entrepreneur who is licking wounds.

You might have saved your money, and you want to start a business.  Before you do that, you need to test that business idea to validate its worth in the market.

Failing at a business does not necessarily mean that an entrepreneur’s idea was bad. Business failure could be attributed to several factors, but how, then, do you know that a given idea is market fit?

Define what your idea is in crystal clear terms

The first step is to define your offering and present it for testing. You can create a landing page or make a presentation to your potential customers or close associates who can give you genuine feedback, if you’re going to sell in person.

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If a startup will weather the test of time, the owner must articulate the company’s purpose/mission in crystal clear terms to the extent that even a bystander will understand what your business is about. Why does your company exist? What value does it espouse?

As you define the company’s purpose, consider Christopher Wren’s metaphor of the three bricklayers. Centuries ago, British architect Wren asked each man what they were doing at a construction site and they had the following answers, the first replied, “I’m laying bricks.” The second replied, “I am building a wall.” And finally, the third man said, “I’m building a cathedral.”

Are you able to define with crystal clarity what you are putting on the market? Can your employees do the same and can your client identify your product or service from many competing ones in the market?

If you, as an entrepreneur cannot say what the business is, then who will? A clear mental picture of what the business is, and will be in picture, will help the entrepreneur to identify team members and stipulate roles that connect every member to the ultimate purpose of the business.

Find your minimum viable segment (MVS)

When an entrepreneur develops a service or a product, he or she has to specify the problem or the need they intend to solve. There is always that image of a perfect customer in every entrepreneur’s mind.

MVS is about you focusing on a market segment of potential customers that have that particular problem you need to create a solution for. No start up can solve every single problem of prospective customers and therefore defining and focusing on your MVS is vital. If this baseline profiling is not done, and done well, you may tend to bloat rather than minimize your product requirements and drain your limited startup resources.

Run presales for your services or products.

This is an important step in your start up journey. It is the presales that will reveal if your business is worth the investment or not.

You can reach out to people in your MVS, through different avenues such as social media forums, run market targeted ads in traditional media if you have a budget or undertake a door-to-door market campaign.

The results from the presales will give you an idea to evaluate your customers’ interest and whether, indeed, your product or service is needed.

Presales, as rightly explained in this article by Mckinsey, provides “a specific set of activities that lead to qualifying, bidding on, winning, and renewing a deal”.

Interview your customer

You are investing your resources in order to create a solution for a customer’s problems. If customers are not there, then your solution will equally be irrelevant.

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So, in every start up, before you invest any further, you need to interview your customers in order to gather feedback about your product or services. Never rollout products or services without getting a feedback from your customers.

If your customers are giving negative results about your services or products, do not ‘force’ a sale on them. Just know that that idea will not work and it is better you change the business idea.

While going through this process, allow your assumptions about the business idea to be challenged. It is the process of debunking your assumptions that will refine your business idea or altogether discard it from the market.

There is no better way to test the viability of a product than experimenting it in the market.

As you seek feedback from your customers, always remember what Alp Kabatepe, author and associate partner at KPMG’s counsel on how to win customers; through “recognizing each customer’s unique habits and preferences, focusing on customer needs and wants as drivers of all strategic decisions and connecting with customers on a deeper level to build trusted, enduring relationships”

Good luck in your business idea actualization.

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