So, you have a killer idea for a healthtech startup. You’re going to build it, grow it, sell it and then breeze through the rest of life as a successful entrepreneur. Sound good?
Well… before you quit your day job (that you’ve probably spent years training to do), spend hours drawing up a business plan, or waste your time or money, you need to start with validating your idea.
‘Idea validation’ is the process of testing and proving your idea, and it can be done way before you have a physical product. So, how do you test an ‘idea’?
Go and speak to your customers
Test whether the problem is worth solving
Good products solve problems. For aspiring healthtech entrepreneurs, problems aren’t hard to come by – NHS front line staff, for example, will see problems everywhere. But before you ask everyone you know whether they think your app is a good idea, start by asking specific questions about the problem itself. Now, by all means use your best friend as a sound board, but be prepared for biased feedback. Speaking to people who actually encounter the problem is the best way to get valuable insights. And remember the more people the better, but as a minimum we recommend you speak to between 5-10.
Within the healthtech space, it is important to remember that ‘customer’ can take on several meanings, as there are often numerous stakeholders involved who may perceive the problem differently. For example, within the NHS, the end user of the product (whether they be doctors, nurses, or patients) are not the people buying it (NHS Trusts). So, in addition to speaking to clinical staff to finely tune the problem, entrepreneurs should also speak to procurement teams and senior staff at NHS Trusts to get an understanding of what the problem means to them.
End users of healthtech products can also be multiple different groups of people, who all need to input into defining the problem. For example, one of our digital health startups, picturepath, creates a digital visual timeline for children with autism and other additional needs, which can be edited and shared between homes and schools. End users here are children themselves, parents, carers, teachers, and teaching assistants – who will all experience the problem slightly differently. Before building the app, our co-founder worked closely with all of these groups to understand those individual experiences.
Create a website landing page
Test if your customers are actively seeking a solution
If your healthtech idea is based on selling directly to consumers, then after speaking to your customers, create a simple website landing page that explains your solution and how it solves their pain points (you should have established these in your user interviews!). This will give you an idea as to whether a solution for this problem is in high demand. If a large number of people are willing to sign up or pre-order your product, you’ll know that your idea is probably worth building.
Websites like www.quickmvp.com, www.getresponse.co.uk are fantastic (free) tools that let you quickly publish a landing page and collect information from potential users.
Become the product
Test your product and solution
Once you’ve established that people want a solution to their problem, it’s time to test out what it could be. A great way to do this is to get out there and actually do what your app, website, or software will do once it’s built.
Again, picturepath is a good example here. Before developing the app, our co-founder Richard Nurse used printed picture cards to communicate with his son, who is on the autism spectrum. He found that using the images to communicate helped his son to understand daily events, and reduced his anxiety. This meant Richard could have confidence before he built the app that, in concept, it worked.
In the world of startups, we call this a Concierge M.V.P. and a lot of successful startups have taken this approach. One high profile example is Airbnb. When it first started, the founders tested their idea by putting up 3 air mattresses in their loft and giving away a free breakfast for any guests who stayed. Further down the line when they launched their site, the founders visited all of their hosts in New York to personally stay with them, write reviews and take professional photos of their homes.
Gather feedback
Learn and improve your solution
How do you know if your customers like the service or product you’re providing? By gathering feedback. One of the biggest issues with healthtech solutions, particularly deployment within the NHS, is that they can often create more problems than they solve.
We’ve all heard multiple tales of how NHS Trusts have adopted a digital tool which sounded good in theory, but in reality, it’s clunky to use, inefficient, and just another time-consuming administrative burden for busy front-line staff to navigate.
Where did it go wrong? It’s likely that the developers didn’t engage in enough feedback loops with users early on in the process. If they had, these problems would have risen to the surface earlier, and could have been rectified.
You can gather feedback very easily:
- Talk to your customers/end users – buy them a coffee and have a conversation with them. Don’t be afraid to ask difficult questions, but make sure they’re open ended and don’t try to steer people in a particular direction.
- Conduct a questionnaire- use google forms or survey monkey (both fast & free).
Once you’ve done all of this, rinse and repeat. Take their feedback, tweak your landing page, improve your solution and test it again.
The circle of startup
After this research, you’ll have a solid understanding of your customers, your problem and what the solution could be. But most importantly, you’ll know if your ‘idea’ is one worth pursuing without having wasted any time or money. And the best bit? You’ll now be in prime position to pitch for investment.
For more information and advice for healthcare startups, visit the Nova website here.
Andrew Dean is Head of Partnerships at tech cofoundery Nova, which specialises in launching healthtech startups
