Read time: 3 mins.

Hey everyone.
Aron here.

We’ve been discussing what you should do after you have your idea.
I always give the advice that you should:

• Pause and find out if you’re solving a problem.

• Create a profile of what your ideal customer might look like.

• Talk with them and find out their problems.

• Craft your solution or product to fit what these customers need.

• Go back and see if you’ve nailed it… is this something they’d pay you for?
  

I used this format to make $30,000 in sales on a new idea of mine.
This is how I did it.

🔙 Background: I’ve been involved in the domain name industry for years. I’ve built a solid network in the space of buyers and sellers. I frequently read blogs and forums that cater to these people. This helps me find out what is new and what people are looking for. Over time, I built up a solid database of contacts and customers in this space. I often share my thoughts on social media, and I’m seen as a reliable and trustworthy person in the domain name market.

⏸️ Ok, pause.
Does this sound familiar?
The advice I often give is to get involved in an industry. ANY industry. What are you interested in? What could you talk about all day long and not get bored of it? Ok. Then insert yourself into the discussion. Share your expertise and insight. Make friends. Be a voice that people come to rely on. This costs $0. Building an audience and a reputation first is very valuable.

▶️ Back to my story:
Once I was involved in this space, I became a go-between helping buyers and sellers. Again, this costs $0 to setup. All you need is knowledge of the space and a solid reputation. From this activity, I built up my network and contacts.

One complaint I heard many times was “the price of top tier domain names is sky high… making them out of reach for the common speculator”. People like to speculate on future prices of many things, and domain names are no exception. Domains are seen as the raw land of the Internet.

✍️ So, to the drawing board. How can I make high end domain names (think one word .com names like napkin.com) more affordable to the average person?

💡 I came up with a few ideas:

1. Allow people to lease a portion of a website’s homepage. But that really doesn’t solve the problem and give people ownership. Scratch that.

2. Allow people to buy a fractional share of a domain name. That way a person can buy a small percentage and participate in the future upside. This could work.

3. Create some sort of NFT representing ownership… blah blah blah. Nah. skip it.

4. Create some sort of ranking system to help people better pick valuable domain names. This doesn’t really solve the problem. It’s a cool idea, but I have no early indication that people want this.

#2 seemed to be the best fit. It directly solved the problem and was a novel approach.

Next… let’s talk to people and see what they think.

I sent out an email blast and asked for feedback. In short, people loved the idea and wanted to participate.

👉️ So, how to pull this off and validate it with NO MONEY spent?

🧠 Simple: Create a Google Form, for free, to take user orders and then push them to Pay Pal or Venmo after they commit to their purchase.

Here’s mine: ⬇️ 

I told people my background in the domain name space.
I told them a quick value proposition.
I told people the terms.
We did it all legally and above board.
You can see 66 people took me up on my offer and we sold out before noon.

After this sale, I circled back to the group to find out what else they might like for the next deal:

And then things can just grow from there. This is an easy way to get started.

🕹️ Here’s the game plan, again:

• Get involved in any industry. What do you love to talk about all day?

• Make friends. Engage in the conversation.

• Build your network. Get their contact information.

• Become an expert and a trusted voice.

• Listen for the same complaints that everyone has.

• Come up with a few ways to solve the problem.

• Ask for feedback.

• If you want to go for it, there are many ways to do it for free… including Google forms and Venmo.

Good luck!

PS: Forward this to a friend! 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 

Aron Meystedt
Validatorai.com