book cover wrapped in link to buy PDF

Choose Your
First Product


4 Easy Steps to
Find and Validate a
Humble Product Idea

You want to make a digital product (a website, an app, a book, or a course)

But you need a good idea.

I don't mean an idea that will make a billion dollars. No honest book will claim that. You want an idea that will get you 10 real customers. And with it, a whole wealth of experience.

When you find and verify the right idea, marketing becomes easy. People will want to buy what you create.

And so we introduce the T-O-A-D. Look at that glorious mascot!

TOAD is a four-step process—a framework—that leads you to many good product ideas.

I'm a programmer, so I make frameworks incessantly. I didn't invent any of these steps. The best frameworks are extracted from real life. So it is with the TOAD. I'm a digital bee-keeper, bringing you honey.

Target

We start with Target market: exploring 3 practical ways to choose your natural market.

Obstacle

Next, we have 3 ways to locate Obstacles, or problems, that prevent your Target market from progressing.

Answer

We build a rough prototype to overcome the obstacle. This is far less than a “Minimum Viable Product.”

Demand

Finally, we explore 3 ways to verify true Demand for the Answer you've provided.

Build true confidence

When you do the necessary research up front, you can proceed with confidence.

Not that phoney, loud kind of confidence; not false bravado. But the quiet kind of determined confidence, where you know you're working from a solid foundation with a realistic grasp on your odds of success.

my bitmoji head

About the author

Leon is a product creator from Australia. He's a nervous public speaker, a bumbling software developer and a kind-hearted friend. His humble products include TimeSnapper, NimbleText, NimbleSET, several T-Shirts, and at least one other book.

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🌟 Prices are in US dollars. Amazon prices are approximate, because Amazon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Light reading while you wait

This site contains quite a few articles you might enjoy. Here are three to start you off:

Why do people buy new products?

If you wish to be a product creator (and I hope that you do wish to be a product creator) you have to understand why people buy products. It sounds like a very open-ended question; like it would be different for every product. Well, I have some excellent news. As a creator of a new product, the question is much narrower: "Why do people buy new products?" and this question has one broadly-applicable answer, and it's a very useful concept to take on-board.

How can I protect my idea?

"I have an idea for my startup, and I've been in stealth mode so far, but I know I'll eventually need to share it with people: what can I do to protect the idea, I'm thinking NDA's, patents, trademarks, what do you recommend?"

Glossary for Product Creators

Here's an ever-expanding glossary, very much an evolving document, of terminology used when bootstrapping your products.

Let me tell you when I write another article



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© Leon Bambrick 2024 | articles | tools | about