#268-Idea validation, building product and Robinhood App

Don’t build the feature sets or product in order to convince users to use it. Here are 5 steps you should follow:

a) Show them an early design of what are you building for, get feedback then change the design if it is necessary.

b) Next step launch a landing page or offer wall that includes the value proposition of what you are building

c) Get them interest and collect their email.

d) Don’t give up if you don’t get enough email. Change the messaging and re-run those campaigns.

e) Still wait to build until you are satisfied with the results.

I like the Robinhood App example. Let’s take a look at their timeline.

Robinhood Timeline

December 2013: Angel Investment- $3M

Feb 2014: They shared TV Commercial look Video publicly.

May 2014: 300k+ users on waitlist

Sept 2014: Series A- $13M

December 2014: RobinHood iOS App Release Date (MobileAction Data)

May 2015: Series B-$50M

August 2015: RobinHood Android App Release Date

It looks a year minimum (first angel round to iOS App, I’m sure Founders started to think Robinhood idea way earlier) for RobinHood to release the iOS version which was the first market they wanted to capture. After 9 months they released the Android version. Do you still want to invest first your entire engineering and product force to an idea you might end up with zero users? Or, let’s test it with a small budget and see how it works?