If you are reading this, you probably have an idea for a business or are currently building one. But the question is, have you validated it yet?

A common trend I see with entrepreneurs and business owners I continue to interact with is the fact that they are building something before they even have a group of people I like to call "Hand-raisers" say yes I want your product or service. I then often times see these entrepreneurs spending thousands (and at times tens of thousands of dollars) on building something without any validation whatsoever.

For those of you looking to validate your business idea here are five tips for you:

Develop a Simple One-Page Landing Page

Please do not spend a month on building out a perfect looking website for your "idea" if it hasn't been validated yet. A way to validate an idea you have quickly is to create a one-page website with the domain for the business idea you have. Send traffic to this page and include an "opt-in" on the page.

Something like a "contact us" or a "sign up for beta" button. If you get people who visit your landing page and become interested in knowing more about your idea by giving you some of their contact information, you have validated your idea.

This is a low-cost fast way to validate your business idea. Stop wasting time to validate your idea and just create a one-page lad

Spend $50-$100 on Paid Traffic

Now I know you are building a startup and we want to find cost-efficient ways to validate a business idea. Now that you have a one-page landing page created about your idea, sign up for a Facebook Manager or Google Ads Manager account and set a budget for $50.

Find some keywords that people would be searching for if they we're to Google your idea. Need some tips? Here's a good resource for you titled, "How to Test a Business Idea in 2 Hours"

Conclusion

If you get 2-4 people to sign up on your landing page and or inquire about your product or service, I would deem that as a success. What that shows is that the copywriting on your landing page intrigued somebody enough to want to learn more about your business or idea. Congratulations you have validated your business idea in a very cheap way!

This is extremely gratifying for an entrepreneur because it should give you fuel to keep pursuing your business idea. Now, you might be asking, what if nobody inquires or signups? Well it could mean a few things.

First off, the copywriting on the page (headlines, titles, name of business, the benefits, etc.) could all not entice someone enough to want to buy or learn more about your idea. What this means is you need to go back into the landing page creator and edit some of the words, phrases, headlines, you chose.

Sometimes the way we communicate or say something makes sense to us, but to a prospective customer or user it might make zero sense. This is why we test and validate ideas inexpensively first and get people to help read over the page before you push it live.

At the very least, get one other person to read the page before you send anyone to the page. Getting another set of eyes on a landing page can really help because sometimes our eyes play tricks on us.This way someone else can read over what you wrote and correct a mistake, or perhaps refine your page to make it convert better.

In the end I want you to know you don't need to spend a lot of money to validate a business idea. You do however have to do it before you invest significant time and money into your idea.

Go out there and get some hand raisers!!!