Test and Validate Your Business Idea or Product

Skillshare Course

Course Project: Validation your business IdeaResponses for Option 1:

What Hypothesis do you want to test first? If you are getting started this should be a test to see if there is any interest in your product or service. If you are already up and running this should be a test to improve your product or service in some way.

1. 1. At the moment I wanted to see if I can orient my professional profile to have two ventures: One is an entity that seeks to support miniature painters and has advice for their paint jobs to help them improve. And the other entity, one that creates miniatures, figures, busts and tools for the hobby itself. Right now, I'm looking at testing both hypotheses in one:
    1. ‘People will be interested in seeing my miniature painting works and learning how to create and paint their own miniatures, especially those I have designed for them to download and customize.’

How are you going to build an MVP to Test this Hypothesis?

1. 1. My process has been the following:
    1. My MVP is simple STL files of models that I have sculpted.
    2. The process to push and test my hypothesis has been to:
      1. Increase followers to have a greater likelihood of attention and follow up on my services and products. This by studying how each platform works and what are the best practices.
      2. Trying to make very interesting paintings for different painters in different formats (posts, reels, carousels and similar): Trying to increase my level of followers. For example, I have seen that making tutorials or tips help a lot to increase these numbers.
      3. Thanks to this, I have increased my number of followers and boosted the offer of free / paid minis and / or tutorials for download. I try to push the call-to-action to my socials: Beacons.ai, Cults3D, Thingverse and Gumroad. These platforms are commonly used.

What resources are required to build the MVP? Time, Money, materials, etc…

1. Overall depending if:
  1. I sell a paid tutorial:
    1. One model and painted (5 hours of work and different resources (Paints, Brushes, etc).
    2. A professional set-up for photographing (Canon Eo5 Rebel T31 + 100mm Lens).
    3. An editor software for retouch and preparing for social media (Affinity Photo)
    4. ChatGPT free for translation and creating a format for the text for social media
    5. The different social media platforms that you are using.
  2. I sell a paid STL:
    1. Same steps as before.
    2. For the development of the STL File
      1. Blender, Zbrush or any 3D Modeling software
        
        Overall a model can take 3 to 5 hours to make.
        
        Rendering and presentation can take 1 hour.
      2. A software to prepare the STL file:
        
        Blueprint Studio, LycheeSlicer, Chitubox_basic

The MVP should take a sprint 1 to 4 weeks to make a painted miniature + model ready to be in stores. This depends on the complexity and amount of pieces of the model.

What are the results or feedback are you looking for from this test?

1. 1. I’m looking to see how many people:
    1. Are downloading the models in each platform
    2. Are subscribing to my socials (Instagram, Beacons.ai, etc).
  2. Feedback i need:
    1. See if the models are good for 3D Printing.
    2. See if the models are attractive or not as proxies.
    3. See if the models have helped my followers to improve.
    4. See if the models are enough to be part of painting competitions.

How quickly can you make changes once you have that feedback?

1. 1. Should take for each iteration at least 1-4 weeks.

What does the schedule look like for building and testing the MVP?

For example for two-week iteration:

During the first week I should have the pre-production. Here we see what to publish and what STL to push with it.
During the first and second week, I should be already pushing for the production. Here we see how the miniature is painted, the STL is sculpted and prepared for stores.
During the second week, I upload all the publications and files to their respective platforms. And see the feedback and reactions.

How much traction would you need in order to start the business?

1. 1. On my calculations right now, it should be at least:
    1. Reach at least between: 5,000 to 10,000 Followers
    2. Reach at least between: 250 to 500 Downloads

If you pursue this full time, do you have money saved up in case it does not work?

1. Totally! I’m looking forward to this as a side-hustle in the long term.

Responses for Option 2:

In my case i have done some multiple STL:

Right now, I'm working on new models and I will have a better process to track the impact with social media.

Guillemro Gómez Zará

Chilean Senior Game developer

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