Brandon Builds #3

How to validate a startup idea: 3 tests for validation

🙋‍♂️ WHY I am Testing Out Demand Of The University

Before spending years building something as big as a new university, you want to make sure that you're on the right path.

But regardless the size of what your building, you should always test out that people actually want it. I learned this as entrepreneur many of times creating things people did not actually want.

So I am running three tests with the university:

• The small beta (currently underway): this proves to me that structuring learning in the way I have is both valuable to learners and helps them achieve their personal and professional goals.

• A landing page test: Using a simple one page landing page to describe the university as if it already existed. By having people apply for the university after reading its marketing message and value proposition, I can learn how much demand there exists for this type of learning.

• A paywall: After I have had a significant amount of applicants apply on the landing page, I will start adding a paywall for the application. The amount will be something small like $20, but it will signal that this is valuable enough people will pay for it.

Note about the paywall: I am obviously not going to actually charge people because I would not have anything to deliver them yet. Instead they will be prompted to pay for the application, hit the pay button, and then be given a message that their payment can not be made right now. However on the backend I can track how many people actually hit the button as if they had paid. I'm not trying to take people's money here. I'm trying to valiadte the idea.

🚀 WHAT I Built This Week

This week I started building out the landing page for the university to run the landing page test.

Other things I am working on:

• Podcast production for the episode featuring Sidney Haitoff, Founder of mishe.

🔨 HOW I Built This

My process for building out this landing page was to:

• Figure out what you need on the landing page

• Conduct a competitor analysis

• Create low fidelity paper wireframes

• Start designing a high fidelity wireframe in Webflow

What You Need On A Landing Page

I have quite a bit of experience building out landing pages and sales funnels for myself and freelance clients in the past. But for landing pages focused on startups like this, the lesson "How to Improve Conversion Rates"from Y Combinator's Startup School gives you a great framework.

When creating landing pages, Kevin Hale is always asking, "What is the minimum amount I need for someone to push this button?"

(The button referring to the action you want the user to take, ie signup, buy, apply)

To answer this overarching question he uses a 7 question framework to build the landing page:

• What is the call to action?

• What is this? - A one sentence description you could copy paste and send to you mom and she would totally get it.

• Is this right for me? Does this solve my problems?

• Is it legit?

• Who else is using it? Why should I trust them?

• How much does it cost? What's the catch?

• Where can I get help?

If you want an even deeper dive into landing page psychology, I recommend getting Russel Brunson's Dotcom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online with Sales Funnels. Russel Brunson has been my biggest influence when in learning marketing.

How To Conduct A Competitor Analysis

If you have done market research like I described in Brandon Builds 2, then you probably have a good idea who your competitors are. In fact you have probably looked at their sites dozens of times (I know I have).

Conducting a competitor analysis helps you identify your key competitors and how they position themselves in the market. You can examine the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and identify gaps in the market your offer could fill.

However for the purposes of building a landing page, we will focus on a few key areas when checking out our competitors:

• How do their landing pages answer Kevin Hales questions from above?

• What marketing copy do they use? How do they speak about themselves?

• How do they showcase their value proposition?

• How is their landing page structured?

• What is the user's journey in order to take the call to action?

I just quickly listed out my competitors and put them under categories of what I liked from their pages. The biggest influences for my landing page have come from Rivet School, Lambda School, Nexford University, and On Deck.

Sketch Out Paper Wireframes

Paper wireframes are fast and easy way to layout what your landing page will look like.

List out what you will need from answering Kevin's 7 questions and from elements you like from competitor's landing pages.

I did two versions. The first was to get the basic layout and make sure I was answering the seven questions.

The second was a more refined version I could reference when building in Webflow. I also started thinking about branding colors (and a possible logo!)

Start Building In Webflow

I love using webflow. As a designer I have complete freedom without having to know how to code the complicated things I want to design.

Of course if you are not a designer, webflow has a steeper learning curve. So for a simple landing page test you can always use something like squarespace, carrd, or clickfunnels.

One of the beauty's of webflow though is I can create a style guide of brand colors and typography setting before building. Then if I decided to change those in the future, it will update my entire site.

Once I had my style guide roughly set I dug into building the out each section from the sketches. For the first go around I just used placeholder text and images. Then I work on each sections marketing copy and images as I have time through out the week.

🧠 WHAT I Learned This Week

• We are all filthy animals - I just finished reading The Moral Animal by Robert Wright on evolutionary psychology. The main argument in this book, originally positioned by Darwin, is that as animals, our mind and body are doing everything they can to get our genes into the next generation. However, those genes don't give a shit if it is moral or makes you happy. Interesting though was Wright's argument that doing what brings the most happiness to you, and everyone else, may bring your goals and evolutions goals into alignment. This was an idea from John Stuart Mill. Coincidently, I have his book On Liberty sitting in my book list on Amazon. 

• Responsive Web Design in Adobe XD - I am currently on the 6th course for the Google UX Design Certification on Coursera. Although I have lots experience in design, this course is just sharpening my skills directed at UX Design. As you can see, I am directly using the skills I learn in the course on my own designs above. In fact here is a competitive audit I did for the course assignment this week.

Podcasts I Listened To This Week:

I REALLY love podcasts. I listen to roughly 20-40 podcast episodes a week. This is the cream of the crop from this week:

• Coursera | Learn in Public - Much like the Business Breakdowns podcast, this new podcast focuses solely on education companies. I loved hearing how Coursera came to be and the nitty gritty of their business model. Key takeaway for me is how the focused on key partnerships with elite universities to leverage their brand. This is something I spoke about in my business plan, except we will leverage key mission driven employers, startups, and organizations people would want to work for.

• How to Optimize Your Brain-Body Function & Health | Huberman Lab - The big note that helped me this week was in the beginning when he mentions the study done to eat fermented foods, not fiber, to reduce inflammation and keep a diverse microbiome. As I have mentioned before I do a cyclical carnivore and animal based diet. As Andrew Huberman mentions, some people's guts don't react well to a ton of fiber. I seem to be one of those people. However I do pretty well with kimchi, kefir, and other fermented foods. So I include them in my diet. It's nice to see that this may be beneficial for keeping a diverse microbiome while also getting the benefits of a mostly animal based diet.

• Mila Kunis & Ashton Kutcher | Armchair Expert - If you did not know, Ashton Kutcher is actually a big startup angel investor. He also has dabbled quite a bit with crypto. So him and Mila were on to talk about crypto for anyone to understand. Besides this being a pretty hilarious episode, it was the first time I really got the value of NFT's. Ashton gave the example of owning a hand written note from Tomas Edison about the light bulb. That would be pretty valuable now. The digital equivalent would be owning the first email written by Steve Jobs on the first Mac. I guess that would be valuable to a collector also.

🤝 WHO I Met That You Should Meet

• Rodney B. Campbell & Keith Richardson, founders of More In Common - They are on a mission to anchor humanity in compassionate conversation. Through consulting they build  simple, repeatable and developed frameworks to develop opportunities for people to more effectively connect driving more collaborative, cohesive and productive environments. On their podcast they demonstrate these conversations by talking to ANYONE about ANYTHING difficult. We will be doing interview swaps on each others podcast. (This will be my first podcast where I am interviewed! 😨)

🌴 WHEN Do I Take A Day Off?

I work 6 out of 7 days a week. I believe that if you love what you are doing, it's not hard to do. But I also structure my days in a way that I don't neglect any other part of life.

Call it work life balance, harmony, flow, whatever you will... I just call it living.

HOWEVER! When Sunday comes there is absolutely zero work done. Why? Because that is time to spend with my wife.

My wife is very important to me. I love her dearly. And to continue to build a deep connection with her that will last a lifetime, I must put in the reps of spending time with her.

So I set aside one day every week just for her and I to connect. And both of us stay pretty militant about making sure nothing else gets in the way of that. Most of our friends even know not to contact us that day because it is our time.

Of course we spend time with each other through out the week. But those are only a few hours here and there. Having one day set aside ensures we are getting that time with one another.

So the short answer: Sunday. I take one day off a week.

🗺 WHERE Is My New Apartment in Austin?

Our new 400 sq. ft .studio apartment is in located in the riverside neighborhood in ATX. We are super pumped about it because its super close to the river & downtown.

Also we are very happy to be moving from our 2,300 sq. ft. house into a 400 sq. ft. space. Why? Because it is a test (you might be sensing a pattern here...) before going all in on a building our tiny home.  

✊ WILL You Take This Call To Action?

If you have an idea, what is the smallest way you could test it? 

When Marc Randolph was building Netflix he mailed a DVD to himself just to see how it worked and if it would be viable to send DVD's to customers through the mail (he explains in his interview with Tim Ferris at timestamp 21:28).

Obviously this applies to business, but it could apply to any idea in life.

I mentioned above we are trying out living in a 400sq. ft. space before building a tiny home just to make sure we enjoy it.

So before you go all in on some huge idea that will take lots of time, money, or energy...

What is one small action you could take to test it is worth that investment?