29 Tools to validate your idea before building MVP

I have recently written a number of answers on Quora regarding how to validate a startup idea. It's summarised in my latest blog post: How to validate your startup idea?.

Here is a list of tools and use cases that will help you validate your idea at the very early stage.

Feasibility study

• Google - start with research. Seriously, I've seen so many startups that build their products without even going through the web. Make sure that you not only find a list of direct competitors but also get to the places where people are discussing the problem. Read articles, forums, and discussion groups before you find and try out your direct competitors. Note how people are looking for new tools, how they describe the problem and what do they miss in current solutions. Focus on understanding how they solve the problem now and what would be the tipping point for them to experiment with new solutions. Make a list of people - by name, email, social media who are active in those groups.
• Crunchbase, Angel.co - it's very probable that some of your competitors (direct or indirect) have raised money and bragged about it. Look at that, list business angels and VCs that got involved. Try to reach out, they might be a great source of information and will help you raise later.
• LinkedIn - most startups hire a lot of people when they succeed, look at the team size charts for your direct and indirect competitors, understand who's growing and who's shrinking and why. It may be a great source of valuable hires for you later in the game. It's also a great way to generate a list of influencers, competitors, and decision-makers in your field. Also see if they are hiring.

• Google Adwords - experimenting with keywords, analyzing CPC will tell you how crowded your space is and will let you estimate marketing costs.
• Google Trends - see how searches related to your problem trend in SERP
• SEMRush - keyword research and backlink checkers will help you understand how hard will it be to build your own position
• Alexa - will help you understand how your competition gets traffic and point where are your future users
• Brand24 - get social media mentions related to your problem and competitors, see what and where people are talking to engage and reach out to

• Quora - see if people are looking for solutions to the problem you're trying to solve, understand their motivations - read questions, upvote good answers, follow influencers (and move them to a closer social network like twitter, linkedin, facebook)
• Google Spreadsheets - bringing it all together to a model is the most important thing, what's the point in building a startup if you can't get to a model that relies on validated assumptions and shows a sustainable business that you'd like to get to

Proof-of-Concept

• Pen & Paper - sketch your solution - a flow, UI part, algorithms design, try to create a proof that you understand the problem and can solve it 10x better than "business as usual"
• Business card - yes, a piece of paper with your name, people are still using them on events and this is the time you should go around and talk to people, most active people will be on those events, focus on your target group rather than startup conferences, if you're creating a startup within railway industry - TRAKO is much better than WebSummit
• UXPin - bring your sketches to the next level, collaborate with friends and prepare for coding
• Quora - start answering questions, trying to point your approach as the right solution to the problem, you may start driving traffic to your landing page
• Landingi - prepare a landing page and start building your community, you can offer reports, webinars, early access, free consultancy in exchange for an early sign-up
• Facebook Ads - lookalike is a great tool to see if there are more people with the problem - just use emails of people that you've gathered through your landingpage and research, TIP: a lot of people use private email on FB and you'll only have their business address, you can find a private email address when you are connected on LinkedIn - and you should be at that point.
• Google Spreadsheet - update your model as you validate more assumptions, implement root-cause approach (f.e. instead of applying a "market standard conversion" of x%, rely on statistics from your landing page)
• Any-language-any-framework - sometimes you need to build a PoC, don't focus on technology, it's not where your competitive advantage is, any tech-stack is good at that point, let your devteam choose whatever will be the fastest to ship; build just this one thing that makes the change, you can even skip log-in

Prototype

• HotJar - observing how your users interact with your app is the best way to identify clutches, confusion, and understand what would they really use it for
• Survicate - surveys are good, just remember you need a crowd for them to be representative, learn how to prepare good surveys and don't skip 1-on-1 interviews for them
• SecurionPay - at that point you should be able to start selling, after all your prototype is what solves your user problem and delivers value, getting paid is ultimate proof that you are getting somewhere
• Google Analytics - track your users not only on your landing page but also inside your app to see how they get to the results they need
• Woodpecker - at that point you should be able to get interest from your cold contacts, since people are engaging with 4th-7th email on the same topic, you should automate your follow-aps and this is just the tool
• Brand24 - monitor what people are saying about you, your problem and your competition, engage to drive social selling
• Growbots - quickly reach out to the right crowd and measure your conversions, make sure that you use it to validate assumptions on your scalable growth - it's expensive for a reason and even though it automates a lot, you still need quite some time to push gathered leads through the sales pipeline
• Appoint.ly - your goal is to understand your users deeply, the most valuable thing for you as a founder is to spend time with them using your app and making sure they benefit from it 10x the effort; schedule 1-on-1 sessions, see what problem and how are they trying to solve with your app, offer genuine help

• UserEngage - analysing app flows, and automating communication to ensure better onboarding and customer support is a must with your prototype, you won't get to the optimal UX before you understand and test your prototype over and over again so leading your users with direct communication and automating it is the key to success, there's no better tool than this
• AppSumo - I've been discussing lately if there's any value for a startup to offer a lifetime deal on AppSumo, I've concluded that it only makes sense when you're validating your prototype; AppSumo users are often changing apps that they use, this will quickly show you if anyone finds your tool useful and is willing to pay anything to get it, at the same time you'll probably lose this user pretty quick as they experiment with new tools very often - which is good, as it's not a recurring revenue

What tools should I add to the list and how do you use them to validate your ideas and assumptions?