I don't care what industry you are in or what is your passionate hobby, we all go thru the information overload stage. We think we have to learn EVERYTHING before we can act. We think that if we are as clever as Steve Jobs with marketing, we'll make the difference.

That thinking gets us stuck and makes us Wantrepeneurs!

I know. I've been there too!

So I had to share this great article with you… How We Killed a Wantrepreneur

Pay attention to how they had an idea and did free market testing in just a day. That kind of swift action is what makes the difference. Get out there and Fail Fast! Then Fail Better and Faster the next time (with little out of pocket expenses) and eventually you WILL SUCCEED!

How We Killed A Wantrepreneur

Neville Medhora
December 6, 2012

He was spending money and time on his business idea … instead we made him $75 within 17 hours by doing a simple “validation test” on Craigslist

My friend Taylor bought a really expensive camera and wanted to start a side business by renting out the camera.

He started doing all this “wantrepreneur” stuff like:

Looking for website domain names.
Learning WordPress so he could start a blog about camera rental.
Writing camera rental articles so he could rank in the search engines.
By the time he said, “I'm also gonna file an LLC corporation for this business”, I exploded.

I asked one question: “Do you know if anyone wants to rent these cameras in Austin?”

He fired back with, “But I can't know until I try.”

This is where he was wrong. You see, there's an easy way to tell if a business is gonna work. It's called a validation.

A validation is a “test” that should take from 3 to 30 days to see if people will pay for a product or service.

So is there a way we could validate this idea for free (and also spend very little time)?

There is.

In fact, we built Taylor a validation for this particular idea in less than 30 minutes, for free … and got the first sale within 17 hours!

Here's how we did it:

First — We wanted to see if people were willing to spend money renting a high-end camera. I decided Craigslist would be a great place to test this out.

Second — We built a super-simple Craigslist ad that took just a few minutes. We made it in Photoshop, but Microsoft Word or even Google Docs is fine too.

The ad is less than 30 words long, and required nearly zero creativity to make. Here it is:

Third — We posted the ad on Craigslist (for free) in the Services > Photography section.

And now we wait. *Sneakily rubs hands together*

Either two things can happen in the next few days:

Bad Scenario —

We get zero people asking about the camera. Bad sign.

This could mean there isn't much demand for a rental service for this camera. Which might mean this is a crappy business to run with.

— or —

Good Scenario —

We get lots of people wanting to rent the camera immediately. This would indicate we're filling a big need for a lot of people in this city.

If people start giving us money, this idea might have some legs!

The Actual Results:

I posted the ad for Taylor, and 17 hours after the ad was posted, he called me saying, “Somebody rented the camera!”

Apparently the person called asking how much he was renting the camera out for. He told the person $75 ($25 more than he I once rented a similar camera) … and they picked it up that afternoon.

This means we made a real sale with real money within 17 hours! *Does happy dance*

See how we proved this idea could actually work? Just 30 minutes for a Craigslist ad and zero dollars.

No building websites.

No spending any money.

No writing business plans.

No buying business cards.

No filling for LLC corporations.

Nothing. The next step would be to repeat that success a few times. If people keep renting it, then it's time to start building the website and expanding the business with more equipment.

If you're tired of never starting a business because it seems too daunting of a task, first VALIDATE ideas before going full-out on a business that's not proven and might fail.