Leadership Skills: Validating, Validation is Critical

Validating as a Leadership Skill, Part 1 of 6

Validation is Critical

We entrepreneurs are a strange lot. We are very creative. We see what doesn’t exist and we create something to fill in the gap. We have a passion for changing people’s lives. We are also blinded by our love for our idea and think that everyone must understand why our product, service, idea, book, speech, or something else, is important.

“It ain’t necessarily so,” sings the character Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess.

Sportin’ Life was referring to the Bible, however we can borrow his language. Just because we have something, it doesn’t mean that everyone else will intuitively get it.

Entrepreneurs have impacted the world in significant ways. Steve Jobs created products and ideas that the rest of the tech world is still copying. Thomas Edison tried 10,000 times to invent the light bulb. Andrew Carnegie, under-educated son of poor Scottish emigrants, became the richest man in the world. They all were tenacious. They had ideas; however, they also connected with others and validated what they were attempting.

Having said that, look at all the Apple products that didn’t make it: Lisa Computer, the Cube, Newton, Pippin, etc. Look at all the inventions from Edison that we never hear about. Jobs got kicked out of the company he founded. Edison went bankrupt 11 times. The cost for their failures was large.

This prompts the question, “How can entrepreneurs validate ideas, concepts, and programs?”

I’m going to explore the theme of validation in Monday blogs during September.

Next week, I’ll start with the concept of finding a market, and then creating a product to meet the need. It’s not a normal pattern for entrepreneurs, however, I’m going to give it a spin.

Comments? Concepts you might have on this topic are welcome. Use the comment section below.

Part 1 Validation is Critical
Part 2 Validation Prevents Entrepreneurial Blindness
Part 3 Validation Is Asking the Right Questions
Part 4 Validation Is Learning from the Data
Part 5 Validation Is Checking the Right Data
Part 6 Validation Is Starting with the Minimum Viable Test