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How to Validate App Idea With Simple One-Page Website

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App Masters11:34Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

Validate an app idea by putting it on a simple mobile-friendly one-page site and asking real people what they love and hate about it. Talking to your target users early shows you what they need before you spend months building.

Key takeaways

  • Building without talking to real users is the biggest mistake in launching an app. 5:54
    • Barnett's first startup, First Roots Media, let independent musicians sell or share music and track how far fans spread it.
    • He built it around how he liked to download music as a fan, spoke to barely any artists, and the project was abandoned.
  • A single mobile-friendly page makes an idea easy for strangers to judge. 6:24
    • The page covers what it is, who it's for, how it works and what it can be used for.
    • A beginner can build it with a drag-and-drop tool like Wix, using napkin sketches of a few screens.
  • Asking what people love, what they hate and what they want next draws out honest answers. 7:36
    • The words love and hate stir up emotion, so people feel invested and give a true response.
  • Asking each respondent for introductions grows your pool of testers. 8:10
    • Naming the person who recommended you can dramatically raise your response rate.
    • Cold outreach on Instagram or Twitter is tedious at first, so keep each message personal and say why that person's feedback matters.
  • Market research on competitors and names should follow the feedback. 9:31
    • Compile the answers in a spreadsheet and look for the positives.
    • If a similar product exists, study why it isn't succeeding and focus on what you can do better.

It's so hard to find five minutes of someone's time, so we have to make it easy for people to validate things.

Leo J Barnett

Chapter summaries

0:00 Why Leo goes by Leo J Barnett

Leo added the J to his name to keep his film and TV work apart from his career in apps.

  • Extra work in film and TV paid for his startup projects. 1:16
    • He worked as an extra for about two and a half years.
    • Before that he did freelance jobs like gardening and fencing to pay the bills.
    • Screen credits tend to bring stage names that feel glorified and over the top.
    • He wanted a plain name, so he settled on Leo J Barnett.
    • He has stepped back from film and TV, though he appears in The Crown.

2:30 Balancing odd jobs with a startup

Low-pay, flexible work leaves room to think and design, but the hours are long and the cash is thin.

  • Repetitive jobs give you time to think up ideas. 3:27
    • Painting hundreds of walls the same colour leaves your mind free.
    • He wrote ideas down as they came and moved them forward.
    • Low pay means more hours of work for the same money, so there is less time overall.
    • The stress is real, and he calls it hard to do.
  • He designed apps wherever the work took him. 3:56
    • On a Pokemon film set he sat in a tent designing apps between scenes.
    • Client messages kept coming in while he was on set.
    • Days could start at 4:00 a.m. and end around 9:00 p.m.
    • Freelance work gave him no say over his hours, so he kept both jobs in his head at all times.

5:47 One short page makes feedback easy to give

A single page removes the excuses people have for not reviewing an idea.

  • One page is quick enough that nobody can say no. 6:53
    • Five minutes of someone's time is hard to get, so the page has to be easy to judge.
    • Send the page to target users through Twitter and Instagram.
    • Validating is easier today because there are many ways to reach a target audience 6:15.
    • The page opens with a short intro, then covers what it is, who it's for and how it works.

8:00 Every respondent opens the door to more

Each person who answers can bring a network of new testers.

  • Ask each respondent who else should see the idea. 8:00
    • Find a perfect target, such as an influencer on Instagram, and ask for their contacts once they reply.
    • Everyone has connections, and friendly people are happy to share them.
    • The approach: Hey Jess, Sarah just recommended me to speak to you.
    • Referrals work like a snowball, spreading through the network or community around your first core responders.

9:25 Check the idea is new and show what it's for

Once feedback is in, confirm the idea is fresh, then inspire people with use cases and images.

  • Make sure the idea hasn't been done before. 9:27
    • Look for the positives in the answers.
    • Check whether the name is already taken.
    • If a rival exists, ask why it isn't taking off and aim to do that part better.
    • The data goes into one spreadsheet, then you move on.
  • Showing use cases and images inspires people more than a plain label. 10:00
    • The Reelshot site gives a quick headline for a new feature, then a "what is it for" line.
    • Listing uses doesn't pigeonhole the product. It prompts people to think of their own, like I can also use this for X, Y and Z.
    • Ask what would trigger someone to use a product like this 10:43.
    • A few images help even if they don't show your app, such as a character or object people remember 11:01.

In the growth library

Leo J Barnett, Entrepreneur, app designer and actor; creator of the Reelshot video editor app. Leo J Barnett shares a simple validation process: build a mobile-friendly one-page site for an app idea, send it to the target audience on social media, and ask three feedback questions. He learned it after his first startup, a platform for independent musicians, failed because he barely spoke to real artists.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript284 lines
0:00

what is up app nation it is thief be young founder of app masters calm the place you go when you want action-packed content in the app business and I talked to some amazing app entrepreneurs out there to really learn from them and today we're gonna talk to an awesome designer and learn about something that I'm very passionate about like frankly suck at and today let me introduce the guest he is Leo Jay Barnett so part of the middle initial crew and I'm gonna ask him why he has that Jay in there but he is an app designer app entrepreneur and creator of a recently feature that called real shot that's our EE L shot and I'll link that into the show notes as well and if you want to learn more about his awesome design skills go check out Leo J bar net.com Leo welcome to the show Wow thank you see if it's lovely to be here thank you so much for having me on you're a legend and yeah brilliant also

0:56

yeah thank you so much for specifying the ieo shht and day in leo barnett as well means a lot for him I have to add P in there because there's a popular quarterback named Steve Young but why do you have the J in there leo so I had like a mild sort of stint in the world of film and TV where I was I was kind of being an extra for about two and a half years and to fund my startup projects and find my way into the sort of app space and so yeah when I was you know you've got to do crazy little jobs and things keep going originally I was doing horrible things like gardening and fencing and just you know freelance work try and pay the bills but yeah I fell into a world of so vaccine and once you start doing a few things he stopped beating people they sort of staged names and it was seem quite so like glorified over the top and I wasn't kind of feeling like I want to be that kind of person so I was thinking like Leo

2:03

Barnett what can I do that it's not exciting Leo lion maybe I just go by lion I have an eye for Jay Leo Jay Barnett sounds good so sort of so I present myself in that world and it sounded nice and then yeah taken a mild step back from the world of film TV you might catch me in the crown by the way that's one of the things I got involved in but no now now using that alias and then in my passion for yeah design and development now leo I love the fact that you were able to you said hey look this is my passion I want to do my startup I'm willing to do anything that it takes how did you go about balancing time so doing these odd jobs being an extra which I know just from listening to other people talk the the actors of the world that I hate this it's a lot of hard work so like how did you go about balancing your time making sure you had enough motivation to continue with the startup and with your

2:58

own business that's a really good I think an important question for the startup community yeah it's really stressful it's not easy to do at all because when you are choosing the life of doing like freelance or menial work so you can spend enough time doing your your passions you're not getting paid a lot and that means you have to kind of warm up more asset in a weird way which sometimes means less or time the beauty of it is that because it can be quite menial is you got a lot of thinking time you add you know if you're painting a house like hundreds of walls the same color all these ideas floating around everywhere and it's amazing you can just write them down and like sort of progress on it and but no there's been occasions where I've been when eventually I saw getting a little bit of a name for myself in the film TV world where I was taking my laptop and I was in like a trailer or like backstage and

3:56

like working on designs I remember specifically under Pokemon film I doubled DJ Diplo know as the DJ for the underground Pokemon battles like weirdest thing I've done the I was in this little tent just sort of like designing apps and things like waiting to be cool with us hat so you got you gotta be in both like worlds all the time really so like even if I was focusing on like app work or like with clients you know I don't be having text coming in to like get me to do jobs inside you just got a you just got to be on top of it and yeah it's long hours you know you could be up at 4:00 a.m. sometimes not getting home to about 9 p.m. and yeah you've just gotta you just gotta constantly have it in your heads and with with the freelance work as well you don't you don't really have the opportunity to choose your your hours in that world from my experiences anyway that's what you gotta do and yeah

4:53

balancing time just just always have on your mind I guess I like I'm in I'm curious to see because you're a designer like how do you go about when you have this new I new idea how do you go about validating that idea you can literally like just be like here I'm gonna sketch this out and kind of present it to people yeah biggest mistake I've made my first startup company which is a direct families it platform called first roots media amazing idea actually to be fair and there was a platform support independent musicians and by letting them set up really simple websites to upload their music and fans that either pay or share to download music and when fans shared via Twitter or Facebook we do track to where it had been shared to artists could see how influential certain fans were at creating this is for them and fans themselves could see how many new listens they were creating for these us as well so pretty simple

5:54

pretty cool yeah but you know I barely spoke to any artists about this at all and in my head I was great I'm a music fan and that's kind of like how I'd like to download music but yeah it didn't speak to enough real artists about what they really needed and I guess that's kind of what reason why I sort of fair would have got abandoned but validating now I find it's more easy in that there's so many avenues for speaking to your target audience and see I use a fairly specific strategy which is praying one-pager mobile first friendly one pager and with your idea and you you outline your idea you say little intro to what it's all about say what it is and that you say who it's for and how does it work so there before fund when things intro what it is how does it work and what can it be used for so let's settle on like a single page so people like have to have no excuses not to look at it so I find today is it's so

7:02

hard to find five minutes of someone's time and see we have to make it easy for people to validate things and going on just things like Twitter and Instagram sending your one pager out to them you can create a one pager very simply using a service such as Wix and where they have that you know drag-and-drop design so if you're an absolute newbie you know you can go to something like Wix and do your one pager and with a few screens of you drawing even like napkin sketches of your idea and with those four questions and and yeah get it out people and and then ask the three fundamental questions what do you love about this and is there anything you hate about this and what would you like to seek next I find the love and hate things draws that sort of emotion up in people when they're looking at your ideas and they they feel more invested to really give like a true response but yeah the other thing is

8:00

with you know targeting like maybe influences or something on on Instagram you find the right person that's a perfect target and they they give you a response and always ask them lies there in announce that you feel would like to you know look at this idea as well so every person you speak to is always a you know a world of doors open to so many other people everyone's got connections we don't know who they are but you know if they're feeling like they're lovely people then they'll always be happy to share but the one thing when that happens when you are validating idea this strategy is get them to pass it on so now soar get them to recommend your name and then approach that person and then when approaching that new person say oh hey Jess Sarah's just recommend me speaking to you because you know your there might be interested in this new project we'd love to hear your for us having that

8:52

social validation and can almost dramatically increase your response rate you're gonna get and and from that as well just act like a snowball effect into like they're sort of network or community from those core people that start responding and but yeah it can be quite sort of tedious from the start like sort of cold calling a lot of people on or in scram but the real key is to always keep it personalized and to them and say why they would be great too and give feedback on your idea and yeah that's kind of like my validation and strategy then obviously not compile all that data into a lovely Excel spreadsheet and and yeah move on and yeah obviously look for the positives make sure you're doing something that is is it go uh make sure it's something that hasn't been done before of course always research like whether your name is taken if there's something else out there on the market if there is something else out there NMR

9:48

ok look at why they're not sitting immediately look at what you can hone in on and make your products even better I like it no kind of point to your women you kind of live by it because I'm looking at your real shop app calm if you guys want to go there so real shot app calm and you can see look you put the new feature that you're featured it's like what does it do kind of like a little quick little headline and what is it for I think that what is it for is really key because people don't really understand and it's like you want to inspire them and then you give a little bit they'll say oh I can also use this for X Y & Z I feel like a lot of people would say if I write what is it for they're gonna pigeonhole me and I think it's the opposite effect if you tell them inspire them for a little bit of use cases they're gonna be inspired to figure out oh I can also use this for X Y & Z absolutely yeah you're bang on and

10:42

that's another thing you know you have to ask the sort of questions like what would what trigger you to use something like this and also one thing that's also important in these these overviews and what if anyone's listening and wants to see an example now do you get in touch and birth imagery like people really resonate of imagery like don't forget the value of just a few images of even if it's kind of like not your app in use you know some kind of like character or objects or something that they're gonna like remember as like a little trigger point yeah inspire them to think of what they could potentially use it for

11:32

you