My solution.. and if my customer is willing to pay

When you’re testing your solution, respondents may have a tendency to give you socially desirable answers and for example say that they like the solution and are willing to pay for it. However, what people say often differs from how they actually behave. And that’s why it’s important to validate the demand side as well.

You need to validate if there’s a demand for your product, because your solution is still an ‘assumption’ and not an actual product. You’re guessing that it is something people want. You’re guessing that they want to pay for it. You’re guessing that you can grow it into a profitable product or service.

Time to change those guesses into facts!

Your respondents’ interest in your product or service has not been proven until they actually put some ‘skin in the game’. In other words, until they made some kind of investment in your product or service. Examples of investments are time, data or money.

Asking for respondents’ email addresses to sign up for updates about your product or service is a great start to see if people are interested. However, it’s important to realize this is still only an intention from their side. They might say they really like the idea or they only like you as a person. When they invest actual money, you know that they are truly interested. It’s as simple as that.

So what experiments can you conduct to test the level of interest?

Pre-sales

Crowdfunding

To validate that your customers are willing to pay in general is one. Secondly, it might be a good idea to validate how much they are willing to pay.

You should determine on a price that makes both the buyer as the seller happy. Besides, it’s necessary to build an effective and competitive pricing strategy.

What methods can you use to measure how much your customers are willing to pay?