Product Validation: An Informative Guide (2021)

Introduction

Product validation refers to the process that involves examining the effects, ensuring that each step towards its structure is up to the level of what stakeholders expect. Product validation does not make sure of the accuracy of the data, though. Its primary focus lies in the quality of the products. Read on to know how to do a product validation. 

  1. The Purpose of Product Validation
  2. The Process of Product Validation
  3. Techniques for Validating the Problem

1. The Purpose of Product Validation

The validation of a product or products is needed to establish and check the bond between the inputs and the outputs generated. The information is thus provided so that the results come out to be as expected.

2. The Process of Product Validation

There are four steps involved in the product validation process. These are:

Validating the problem: This refers to analyzing the situation. Whether is a minor one that can be solved quickly enough or is it paramount that would take many amendments and changes? After these points being analyzed, one needs to move to the next step. No matter how good your product is, and no matter how confident you are about the quality, you must figure out if the problem needs a solution and, if yes, can it be solved? The best thing to do in this case is talk to the potential client’s don’t this. And the primary focus should lie on the qualitative interpretation of the product done. Following a few simple steps would help a lot in going through this process:

  • Starting with a small group of users is always a good idea instead of taking many potential or existing clients. 
  • The kind of feedback and reviews you receive from them are the ones that are going to help you in determining the problem and solving it subsequently.

3. Techniques for Validating the Problem

Here are three different techniques product validation testing :

  • Find five people: The technique involves finding at least five people willing to take up the hypotheses and work with you in problem-solving.
  • Interview: The next step is to interview the users. Taking their feedback is something that helps in analyzing the problem to a great extent. The reason is that the users are the ones who know the actual situation and not the ones who make them.
  • Ethnographic research: This refers to the process of discovering something yet unknown. You need to travel to the users’ natural working environment and research their behaviors, the factors that motivate them, and similar aspects. 

Validating the market: This is yet another step that cannot be missed at any cost. This works on the survival of the fittest. While some of your loyal customers would feel that you can take care of the problem, they might as well move to the many other options available for them in the market. You must take care of the market you consider to survey should have a reasonable size to ensure that the results can be taken further. Pu needs to collect as much data as you can.

It helps figure out what clients are looking for, but you can also decide on the pricing and the other financial projections. As we talk about taking a sizable market, a valid question arises: what is referred to as a large market? This depends upon the businesses are trying to gain and the goals to have sr up for the company. The higher the expectations, the more you are likely to get better results with a broader audience.  

There are few tools available too for helping you through the process of validating the market. These are:

  • Google trends
  • Keyword planner
  • Moz

A) Validating the Product

 Product validation is one of the essential aspects of all. Validating the product broadly refers to the case where the problem might be there, but you need to find out if your work can solve it or not. As they say that you cannot ensure that things come up clean unless you get your hands dirty. Risks are a part of the business, and they take you to great heights if they are well planned and executed. Few steps towards validating a product:

B) Building a prototype

No matter what kind of website you are looking to launch for the product, the basic idea still stays the same. The initial step needs to be setting up the prototype and moving further only if the prototype gets approved. 

C) Testing the Prototypes

You might expect what you do, but unless the users approve it, nothing will work in the right way. So it would be best if you got the prototype tested after setting it up.

There are a few standard methods used to test prototypes. These are:

  • Ninja user testing methods.
  • Remote user tests

D) Validate the Paying Willingness

No matter how good your product is, quality-wise and price-wise. It might also be a going product in the market, but what you need to analyze is whether the potential buyers reach their pockets to buy your products. Various methods can be used to validate the willingness to pay:

E) Spoof Landing Pages

This has known to be one of the most successful methods to validate the willingness to pay by the users. You might think this to be unprofessional, but it’s just to check because you are not taking money, so it is an excellent way to go ahead.

Starting a concierge service refers to setting up a fake service to check the utilities’ viscosities before setting up an existing software. This helps the company assume what the users are looking for to apply the same thing when they set up the actual software.

E) Talk to the Potential Client’s

Verbal communications have always been the best irrespective of what the latest technologies come into action. The reliable, easiest, and cost-friendly method indeed. Customer validation questions give better information about what the clients are looking for and let the company know what they are looking to be served.

F) All criteria fulfilled

After you have gone through everything, what you need to check is that the product has fulfilled all four criteria; what next? The next step requires implementing what has been known and utilizing the data in improving the business and taking the business to the heights of success.

Conclusion

The answer to What is product validation has an answer that is not only vast but has many hidden loopholes too. Validating the product is necessary and needs to be carried out in a planned way. Failing to do so might have severe complications in the business. The best thing to do is to plan things wisely beforehand and execute them in a way that manages time, and other pieces of stuff are taken care of properly. 

Interested to learn all about Product Management from the best minds in the industry? Check out our Product Management Course. This 6-month-long program takes place online through live instructor-led sessions. It is the only program in India that offers the ‘Bring Your Own Product (BYOP)’ feature so that learners can build their product idea into a full-blown product, and go through an entire Product Development lifecycle. Not only this, but this is the only program in India with a curriculum that conforms to the 5i Framework. Post completion, learners receive a joint certification from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, and Jigsaw Academy. 

Related Articles

loader
Please wait while your application is being created.
Request Callback