#5 Idea in Action: Time to Validate The Vision
Hands-on feedback on how to validate (or not) your idea
Hello there,
This is Antoine from sunny Lisbon ☀️ - I’ve started writing publicly on May 1st 2024 and since then, we’re 24 ! Thanks for being part of this journey.
TL;DR: I admired entrepreneurs for their endless ideas, but now I have a backlog of them thanks to user research and shifting my mindset. Talking to people has confirmed the need to open up discussions about men's mental health, and working with a coach has helped me break limiting beliefs through morpho psychology.
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What you’ll read today
Insights and experiences from the ongoing user research
Morpho-psychology: a WOW moment
Before diving in, I have a simple request for you. I’m exploring a new start-up idea to improve mental health (if you read my newsletter, you’d know!) and I need to interview 5 men between 18-25 years old, and 5 men older than 50 years old
If you know anyone, write me an email: ajje.carre@gmail.com
Thanks !
Now let’s dive into today’s post 👇
Reading time = 6 minutes
From Ideas To Evaluation
Breaking The “I don’t have any idea” Pattern
Back when I was an employee, I often found myself amazed by all these entrepreneurs around me. They seemed to have an endless stream of incredible ideas, while I felt like I was stuck in a creative rut. I admired their innovation and vision, wondering if I would ever experience that kind of inspiration.
Fast forward to today: my perspective has completely shifted ! Now, I have a backlog of ideas. It's amazing how the brain works and when you switch to “I want to get 5 ideas todays”, it unlocks your creativity - which I thought I didn’t have 🤦♂️.
Talking to people, understanding their needs, and exploring new concepts has filled me with more ideas than I ever thought possible.
This transformation from feeling creatively stifled to having an abundance of ideas is one of the most rewarding parts of my journey. It just shows that with the right mindset and tools, inspiration can come from anywhere, and what once seemed unattainable can become your new reality.
Evaluate The Idea
I shared the idea in my last post: improving men’s wellbeing. Whilst I have dozens of ideas on how to get there, let’s start using a simple framework (from Y Combinator):
How big of an idea it seems to be: 5/10
→ I feel there’s a positive mindset shift happening and already many B2B companies have traction. Yet, the positioning remains a consumer idea - so far - which is expensive and need a big momentum
Founder/market fit: 5/10
→ no working in healthcare but do work in tech for 7+ years. Also looking for a technical co-founder 🕵️
How easy it is to get started: 8/10
→ could test loads of product ideas easily leveraging no-code. Let’s be honest, I’m not building the next chatGPT here
Early market feedback from customers: 8/10
→ early feedbacks seem to validate the need (see below)
Overall score: 6.5/10
Not too bad, and could score higher with a specialised technical co-founder
The Joy of Talking to Users
One of the best parts of this project so far has been talking to the 13 amazing people I interviewed - if you are part of them, thank you ! Their insights and stories not only energized me but also confirmed something important: it's time to open up the discussion about men's mental health!
Highlights:
Engaging with real people provided invaluable insights
Confirming that the project addresses a crucial pain - let’s discover exactly which one
The positive energy and motivation I got from these conversations
I felt a sense of validation and excitement knowing we are on the right path. It was like Steve Jobs once said:
"Getting it right is about knowing who you are and who you are building it for. When you are passionate about your audience, you can't help but get excited about creating something amazing for them."
Been a long time since I felt passionate !
Discovering User Research: The Essentials
Areas Of Improvement
Here are a couple of challenges I faced:
Learning Curve: since user research is new to me, my first interviews were far from professional. I was focused on validating my idea rather than understanding the pain points of the interviewees. The questions lacked structure, and I failed to take notes or record the conversations. 🚩
Needing Support: facing my limitations, I realized I need support and guidance from experts to enhance the research quality: I’m working with a friend who guides me on product topics - thanks Greg !
Steps Taken To Improve
A few lessons I want to share with you:
Start with hypothesis: 10 is a good number
Prepare a script, introduce your objective but not your product/idea !
Have a backlog of questions to ask:
Tell me about how you do (this) today..
What’s the hardest thing about doing (this) ?
Why is it hard?
How often do you have to do (this) ?
Why is it important for you/your company to do (this) ?
What do you do to solve (this) for yourself ?
Opposite to these above, never ask: “Will you use or product?” or “Which features would make our product better”→ focus on problems, not features
Synthetize your learnings and get back to #1 to check if they are validated or not
Start sketching your MVP
These principles have been eye-opening, helping me see things from our users' perspectives and ensuring we're on the right track. The goal is to avoid this:
No big roadbloaks for the moments, maybe after more interviews we’ll learn that it’s not really a problem 🤷🏻♂️ Yet I'm determined to keep learning and improving.
Enough about the start-up stuff - let’s change topic as I just discovered something incredible : morpho psychology !
My Coaching Experience and Morpho Psychology
I just started working with a coach which has been another highlight of this journey as I discovered morpho psychology, which explores how our physical appearance reflects our personality and psychological traits.
Morpho psychology is based on the idea that the shape and configuration of a person’s face reflect the workings of vital forces within the human body.
Lessons Learnt:
Self-Knowledge: deeper insights into my strengths and limitations, things that I’ve known for years (analytic, love freedom, working with people..) and some new ones (I’m a creative person, aha!)
Breaking Beliefs: This self-awareness is helping me challenge and overcome limiting beliefs, fueling my personal and professional growth.
This understanding of myself is incredibly empowering and I’m doing some incredible work with this coach to break all these limited beliefs and give myself more chance to succeed.
It's like unlocking a new level in a video game, where every insight brings me closer to becoming the best version of myself.
If you’ve never tried it and are interested to explore, let me know and I’ll put you in touch 📧
That wraps up this post ! Thanks again for being part of this journey and see you in two weeks.
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👉 If you have any ideas on how to improve the format/writing or if you want to connect, drop me a message on Linkedin - see you in two weeks !