Choose Your
First Product
4 Easy Steps to
Find and Validate a
Humble Product Idea
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.
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.
Available in four flavors
Now available from the Kobo store as well.
You can also purchase directly on your Kobo device. I ❤️ kobo.
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🌟 Prices are in US dollars. Amazon prices are approximate, because Amazon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This site contains quite a few articles you might enjoy. Here are three to start you off:
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.
"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?"
Here's an ever-expanding glossary, very much an evolving document, of terminology used when bootstrapping your products.