Time to build a proof of concept so I could

[zihadhosenjm90]

Time to build a proof of concept so I could actually validate this afghanistan telemarketing data idea.

Next, it was time to build a very simple proof of concept that’d serve as a tool to outline & highlight exactly what this adventure guide would be.

A proof of concept is a realization of your method or idea that demonstrates its feasibility. Its purpose is to verify that your concept has the potential of being used (not a guarantee of future success, but rather an affirmation that what you’re creating could turn into your eventual business). A proof of concept is usually small in scope and it’s generally not a finished solution. It’s designed to solve the most basic form of the problem your business is hoping to solve—perfect for when you need to validate a business idea.

The primary purpose of my proof of concept will be to convince my new email subscribers why they need this guide. The selling points, the change it will create in their lives, the benefits they’ll get from reading it.

So, I took a couple of hours and wrote out a simple Google Doc Proof of Concept that was just a few pages long (you can check it out and grab the template for it right here).

validate-business-idea-google-doc-proof-of-concept
I pulled in some of my Instagram photos I took at cool California destinations from the past year or so to help tell a more visually compelling story and give people a more clear idea of the types of places I’d be including in the guide.

Important: At the end of the proof of concept page, I wanted to include a link to where people could immediately go and pre-order the guide. Giving readers the option to go and buy the guide without me first directly asking them to purchase would tell me a lot about how excited they are for this guide.

To keep things as simple as possible, I took 15 minutes to set up a product page on Gumroad, an extremely easy-to-use platform where more than 24,000 people have set up online stores to sell both physical & digital products.

I chose Gumroad because they have the quickest setup time in my experience, and I knew they offered the option to pre-sell products without charging the customer’s credit card until the guide is actually finished—something I really wanted to highlight to my potential customers so they’d know they’re not getting scammed.

I also had to choose my price point for the guide.

I wasn’t too worried about the dollar amount I earned from pre-sales of the guide, since my goal at this stage is to validate my idea—not make ten thousand dollars from it this week.

The dollar amount isn’t important—hitting my validation goal of 10 pre-sales is important.

I want to reiterate again, that the only thing that mattered at this stage was validating my business idea—not earning thousands of dollars from this today. This is a step that so many aspiring entrepreneurs neglect to see the importance of, which often leads to failure, loss of motivation and disinterest in an otherwise great idea.