How to Validate an App Idea Before Developing It

It’s finally your moment: you’ve had the idea of the century, and you’re ready to create an app that will make you famous—and why not, even rich! But you don’t know where to start: should you patent your idea? Should you hire a team of developers and start thinking in detail about how your app should look? Everyone seems to have an opinion on how creating a new app works, and you don’t know which way to turn. Well, here’s a tip that goes against the grain: maybe this app isn’t something you should make!

“But how?”, you might be thinking, “What will happen to my brilliant idea?”. The truth is that many apps fail before they even get off the ground, often after the entrepreneur has already spent a fortune developing their idea. The problem isn’t the code, nor the choice of team, nor a design that isn’t “WOW” enough. The problem is the idea itself. So, what should you do?

I have an app idea: what should I do?

If you have an idea you consider interesting, the first goal is to find out if it really is and, more importantly, if it’s interesting to the people who should use it. In practice, the first thing to do is validate your app idea.

Validation can be a very emotional phase: it’s easy to become attached to your product and risk not seeing the reality. For this reason, besides approaching it with an open mind, it’s necessary to follow a procedure that doesn’t lead you to find the results you hope for when they are not the actual ones.

Why validate your app idea before developing it

The temptation might be to dive straight into creating the app, but validating the idea saves time and money. If your project isn’t destined to succeed, it’s better to discover it immediately, rather than after developing a product, which might be well-made and satisfying, but that no one uses.

It works like relationships: it’s better to realize there’s no compatibility after a few dates rather than at the altar, or worse, after years of an unhappy marriage. Before investing all your financial resources and precious time in creating the app of your dreams, it’s better to find out if it’s also what your potential users actually want.

Should you make a Proof of Concept for your app?

You may have heard of POCs or MVPs, terms widely used in the startup world. While both are valid tools to understand if a finished product could work, they still require an expense, however modest.

Are they ideal for you? It depends! They might be if:

• You already have a well-established market or community. In this case, your knowledge of the sector can compensate for the initial market research otherwise needed to launch a digital product. But beware: sometimes, especially if you are a specialist in the sector, you might think you know your customers and what they want better than they do, without ever asking them what they really need.
• Your time is more valuable than the cost of a POC. With a Proof of Concept, you immediately enter the market, testing the results of your efforts right away. So, if you don’t have time to waste, skipping a few intermediate steps could be the right path for you.

There are also completely free methods to understand from the start whether the idea itself is worth pursuing or if it’s better to let it go. If these are successful, the next step can be developing the first Proof of Concept, a rudimentary version of your app to test its feasibility.

How to validate an idea before developing it: start with the problem

All successful apps have one thing in common: they solve a specific need. One could argue that not everything has to serve a purpose—for example, did we really need an app like Candy Crush, the famous game of matching candies? The truth is that everything with many users fulfills a function, even when the function is simply keeping our hands busy in the evening while relaxing on the couch.

It is therefore important to ask yourself: what problem does my app solve? This is where you should start, long before thinking about how to develop the interfaces or which features to include.

Once you’ve identified the problem, you should also ask whether there are already efficient solutions: as the saying goes, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If there is already an alternative solution, digital or not, or a competitor that fully satisfies your potential customers, your app risks gathering dust on the (metaphorical) store shelves.

It’s also important to understand how many people have this need: even if you’ve identified a significant gap, if it only involves a small pool of users, you risk developing your app for very few people, resulting in failure anyway.

The first test for your digital idea is understanding user needs

Once you’ve identified the need you want to address, the first test for your idea doesn’t concern what you want to do at all, but what your users really want. Understanding who might use your app, why, and for what purpose will guide every choice you make as an entrepreneur.

How can you get the answers you need? Here’s a step-by-step guide to entering the minds of your potential users and understanding what they want—even better than they can imagine themselves.

Create a needs-based survey to approach the market

Start by creating a multiple-choice survey. Keep it brief: you can’t ask your future customers to spend more than twenty minutes helping you shape your idea, or you won’t get responses!

It’s important to remain completely open-minded: your questions shouldn’t be biased or suggest the answers you want. They should be specific enough to elicit detailed information, but also vague enough to allow respondents to reveal varied aspects of the problem.

Some example questions to understand the problem:

• What is the most frustrating aspect of this issue?
• How often do you encounter this problem?
• What solutions do you use to overcome these difficulties? And do they work?

Where necessary, you can include open-ended questions, but without overdoing it, so as not to extend the time required for respondents or for analyzing the responses.

Even at this stage, it’s recommended not to talk about your app idea yet to avoid biased answers, but it’s still a great way to gather leads. You can ask for a contact from those completing the survey and follow up once your product is ready to be tested.

Interview the right people to validate your business idea

A survey is a great starting point, but interviews with potential customers make the real difference. You can request interview availability during the survey, where you will discuss the responses and propose your idea.

Again, start by listening: dig deeper into aspects that emerged from the survey, always avoiding leading questions. This way, you’ll gain useful insights for practical aspects of your app and understand which features are most appealing to that specific customer.

Only after listening carefully should you present your app as a solution and study their reaction (or ask directly for feedback) to see if you’re heading in the right direction.

How to know if your app will succeed: the importance of early traction

Early traction is the interest shown by potential customers and investors in your product at an early stage and is a great indicator of whether your app or digital product will succeed.

Besides observing this during interviews, you can also create a simple landing page describing your product’s purpose, including a form to collect contact information from interested people to keep them updated.

If you get many contacts at this stage, it’s a good sign that your app might indeed be worth developing. At this point, you can move on to creating a POC or MVP, so those who showed interest can have something tangible to evaluate whether their problem is solved.

Need a hand? Try our Sprint Check

Sometimes a survey isn’t enough: even if the idea is good and the need exists, it’s not clear how to bring it to life concretely, and the process can stall before becoming a real product.

At Mabiloft, we’ve been helping founders and companies understand how to start their digital products for years. To promote useful and interesting products, we’ve created the Sprint Check, a free consultation that helps validate your idea.

We’ll ask you the key questions no one has ever asked and analyze your idea with you, giving precise and specific suggestions for your situation.