Ask HN: Concept Testing

3 pointsjcnnghm2 comments

Does anyone have some good, real world advice on testing a concept? I thought I had read about a service that you can point a domain name at, that will allow you to construct some quick copy, a simple survey, a contact form, and a mailing list so that you can gauge a market before you build anything. Does a service like that actually exist, or am I imagining it? What do you all do to test a market before you build something?

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This sounds to me like the 2nd step in testing a concept; I've heard of people spending money on various ads on Adwords that all point to a basic website, and then see which ad generated the most click-throughs (therefore, that is the superior product). All this tests is a name and the description and through that, really basic interest.

This sounds like an awfully passive approach.

Why would someone even go to the site, let alone spend their valuable time filling out a survey? And why trust what they say, will a survey produce "Revealed Preferences" (as I think the term goes)?

I'd suggest reading up on Steve Blank's Customer Development approach (I sure wish it had been around back when I was working for various ultimately unsuccessful startups).

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