How To Validate Your Idea: Mentor’s point of view
As one of the mentors on Validation Booster programme, I aim to help you understand what goes on behind the scenes of this project and what is being boosted or validated. We often have new business ideas, but only some are worth pursuing. Are you able to learn how to break up an idea, look at all the necessary elements, research, and determine if it is worth your time?
Validation Booster is a segment of the Western Balkans Media for Change project. It is meant for large and small media outlets, as well as individuals who want to test a new business idea, learn how to understand the pros and cons of it, and validate it using tools and knowledge they learn during the five months of the project, while getting financial support of up to GBP 10,000 for the validation process.
Who exactly can apply, and what do we mean by a new business idea?
Let’s say that you are a media professional, a media organisation, or just an individual passionate about media projects and are thinking of creating a new content stream (like a podcast or a show) separately from the current content that you already produce or manage in your media.
This sounds easy, but there are many things to consider or evaluate to see if that new content would have an audience, what kind of resources it would require, how much time or money it would take to create and maintain it.
Validation Booster is a program meant to teach you how to think about that new idea as a separate business (even if it doesn’t need to be one), how to develop it, and how to research it.
Skill you will learn
Validation Booster is an intensive program that requires significant time and dedication from its participants. The program is divided into three segments:
- The initial three workshops to teach the participants most of the necessary tools
- The research period
- The final seminars to sum up the results
The first workshop focuses on market analysis, competition research, and SWOT analysis. This introduces you to examining your idea best about existing solutions on the market and possible competition. You will get answers to questions like what are your strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, or threats when proceeding in development.
In the second workshop, participants will learn about Business Model Canvas, which gives you a quick and agile way of developing your idea into a business model and seeing what you have to work with, who you are addressing, and your unique value proposition. Participants will also learn how to create an Audience Persona and develop a content plan. Audience Persona or Buyer Persona is a virtual model representing your target audience. It lets you quickly focus on what solutions drive their interest and always be on top of your offer.
The third workshop dives into explaining “the Mom Test” strategy and asking the right questions to see if your business idea has merit. Like in any business, we need to reduce assumptions and develop something that we think would work. Instead, we should look out for what kind of problems, habits, and issues our audience has and try to provide something that would be of value to them – something they would actually use.
The participants would then use these tools to do actual research, go out and talk to their target audiences, validate their ideas -or learn that they need to pivot. This is the main goal of the entire project.
Lastly, at the end of the project, workshops on creating a pitch deck will give all participants the right tools for formulating the best, most effective, most comprehensive way to easily explain their new business to anyone they address.
In addition to everything, there is a final online event where potential donors are invited to hear about the team’s new business ideas and validation process—a pitch session that can lead to new partnerships.
Validation is the key
As mentioned, the main goal of Validation Booster program is to validate your new business idea. You should actually talk to prospective users, listeners, viewers, buyers, sponsors – basically anyone that you target -to learn whether you should proceed or not.
The purpose of this program is not to produce or develop your final product, but to test your idea and determine its viability. It’s important to emphasise that this program is designed for evaluating concepts rather than funding the creation of a finished product or solution. It encourages exploring assumptions, conducting research, and deciding whether to move forward or revisit the idea from the ground up.
Validation Booster is meant to provide skills and show the participants how to validate. It is also meant to incite the development of a business mindset and teach teams how to think in terms of market placement, viability, execution, and revenue.
Mentorship support
Throughout Validation Booster program, all teams have a mentor assigned to them who helps them understand, formulate, and re-evaluate their work from the workshops and during the validation program. The mentors are available to the teams weekly, keeping constant contact with them for any questions, thoughts, ideas, and discussions.
This is a crucial feature of the program, and it enables all teams to keep their focus on the validation process, implement it, and reach a conclusion with an understanding of all the elements and tools they have been taught through the process.
Mentors will help you clarify the tools and techniques and incite the team to reach their own conclusions while brainstorming ideas.
It is up to the teams to make the most of what is available to them and use their mentors not only for the task at hand but also for the specific experience and knowledge that they might bring to their business idea.
Join the next phase of Validation Booster
Validation Booster program will have another cohort from October 2024 to February 2025, and applications are currently open at the following link. Deadline for applications is 1 August 2024, by 23:59 CET.
We advise you to apply as soon as possible, and get the opportunity to define, research, and validate your next business idea.
The Western Balkans Media for Change project is funded by the UK Government and implemented by the British Council in partnership with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), Thomson Foundation and INTRAC (The International NGO Training and Research Centre)
