Sebastian Białas 
From this article, you will learn:
Investors expect a clear rationale for why your idea is worth their funds. A UX agency will help you present it based on reliable feedback from potential customers. To this end, it will first prepare the necessary digital tools for this task and monitor the results. As a result, you will get credible arguments to use in the business conversation.
Idea validation is not all that a UX agency can do for you. It can also help you create a coherent marketing and communications strategy that will attract the attention of investors. With a properly designed presentation or informational materials, you can convincingly present your idea to them and get them to invest in your start-up.
A potential investor wants confirmation that your idea is marketable and likely to succeed. Make sure that the materials or presentation you present reflect your idea convincingly and inspiringly. The best situation for an investor would be to know that your product or service already has an audience and is already earning for itself. However, what about when this is not yet the case? Your idea may be good; it may have potential, but these are still just assumptions. You need concrete data, concrete examples how your product or service will work in the market.
Here, we come to specific ways of validating your idea that can help investors decide to provide funds for the development of your company or project.
There are many ways to obtain data on a digital product’s attractiveness. In this article, we will focus primarily on solutions that a UX agency can provide.
The first is to create an MVP, a truncated version of the software or service that will allow potential customers to test critical features and capabilities before purchasing the full version. Typically, an MVP has limited functionality, but what must unquestionably be in it is the keynote of the final product. This could be, for example, a video, a simple version of the app, or a landing page to encourage purchase.
The launch of an MVP version can be accompanied by collecting interested people for a full release waiting list for your product or service. Creating such a list can be through newsletter sign-ups or making a registration form on the product’s website. When time permits, eager users will be informed of the product’s availability.
There are alternative ways to validate an idea, such as user interviews. The results from such interviews will show whether your product addresses a significant problem for users and whether they will be able to pay for it. It will also allow you to tailor your solution to your customers’ real needs and expectations, which will significantly increase your chances of success in the market.
User interviews can be conducted in person, by phone, or online. What can you ask? Basically, anything that will help you answer the question of what customers want.
It is important to ask open-ended questions and encourage honest answers. Only this will allow you to deeply understand your target group’s point of view. If, as a start-up, you can offer them a better, or perhaps even cheaper, solution to their problem, this will tell you that you are likely to gain a customer in them.
You already know what options you have for validating your project. Now, it’s time to get specific. What can a UX agency do for you? What products can you prepare to make you a credible player for potential investors?
What is a pilot in the context of idea validation? It’s launching a service or product for a trial period or to a limited number of customers. With a pilot, you can test whether your service actually meets customer expectations and whether there is a demand for it. During the pilot, you can collect feedback and opinions from users, so you will be able to make any adjustments and improvements before officially launching the service.
If the pilot is successful, customers will inquire about the possibility of making the service permanent, and you will have further proof that your idea will find its way to the market. Thus, You will build a strong customer base, which will interest potential investors.
Another way to validate is to build a clickable prototype, an interactive version of the design created so that the user can test its functionality, navigation, and interactions with mouse clicks or screen touches. This is not yet a finished and working application, but it allows you to test the idea in a form close to the final product.
There are many tools for building clickable prototypes that can be used to collect customer feedback. A few popular tools are Adobe XD, InVision, Balsamiq, Sketch, and Figma. Working with a UX agency will guarantee that the tool that best meets the project’s needs will be used in preparing your MVP.
MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a product that contains only the basic functions and features necessary for release. This allows for quick data and user feedback to further develop the product in accordance with customer needs.
The UX agency will greatly support you at the stage of defining specific costs and MVP functionalities that the investor would like to know about.
It will conduct a thorough analysis of market needs and expectations of potential customers. This will help you bullet out a list of features needed to create a basic version of the product. It will also be important to determine what specific costs will be involved in creating and maintaining the MVP. This includes costs related to developers, marketing, hosting, technical support, or software licenses.
Gathering all this information will help draw up a business plan with a detailed description of the MVP’s costs and functionality and financial projections for product development. The presentation of the business plan, which will form the basis for negotiations with a potential investor, should be clear and attractive and include all relevant information in an accessible and concise manner. It is worth trusting specialists in this case!
These are vital elements in the software development process. Regular testing of your application will detect bugs and improve its performance. Taking care of the user experience, i.e., making it easy and pleasant for users to access features and interact with the application, will increase their loyalty to your product and allow you to gain their trust.
UX agency specialists will ensure that the data and feedback collected from your target audience are reliable and as detailed as possible. To this end, they will work multi-channel, using:
Collecting feedback from users, both positive and negative, will help you better understand your customers. You will learn what annoys them or makes them uncomfortable. They will tell you about things that are impossible to catch by analytics. When a user abandons a product they have started, you will only learn from typical analytics tools that the rate attributed to this has increased. With the information gathered directly from the feedback, you can find out the reason for the exit from the site or app and whether you should be worried about it.
You already have all the data from user feedback. What can you do with them? Use them to improve your idea. By analyzing specific messages, you will avoid mistakes in the design of your application and adapt it to the real needs of your target audience. The feedback you receive can also help you recognize what improvements or additional features users might find helpful, making your product even more appealing.
Using an app in a real-world environment is critical to improving the user experience. You may find a marked difference between using the same application in a controlled environment and using it in the field. Technicalities, such as a weaker Internet connection, may be an obstacle. By observing how users use the app, you can identify potential problems and quickly tweak the relevant parameters to eliminate shortcomings.
It’s also worth mentioning responsiveness testing of the app on different devices and platforms. Make sure that users from different devices and operating systems have a uniform and satisfying experience using the app. This will help you avoid these problems in the future and offer your customers the most intuitive and functional solutions from the start.
Testing in a real-world environment is a great way to build trust and brand loyalty because it shows that, as a developer, you are truly committed to improving your products.
Investors increasingly recognize how important a positive user experience is in driving the success of a product. They are not wrong. Attention to user experience makes users more willing to use a given service or product, which translates into greater user satisfaction and loyalty.
It will also be to your start-up’s advantage to know that user testing has been conducted. This is insanely important. With information from your target audience, you can correct what you already know isn’t working, monitor whether the problem still exists, and look for entirely new difficulties at some stage of use.
Inviting a UX agency to work with you can be strategic to the success of your start-up. A well-chosen team of specialists will help you convince an investor that your idea is worth investing in. An agency like Push Buttons will provide you with specific data and guidance on product development and will also support you in creating a marketing strategy. Your idea deserves to be developed by the best of the best, and these are the ones we employ at Push Buttons.
