Create a Go-to-Market Plan

with Deirdre Breakenridge

Product and Problem Validation

This worksheet will help you to take a two-step approach to product and problem validation. You will validate the
product with your potential customers first, and then validate the product in the market.

Validate your product and problem with the target customer by doing the following:

• Identify there is an actual problem based on your initial research

• Speak with potential customers to ask what problems they are facing
• Create three or four questions for target customers to answer concentrating on their time, focus,
and level of ease
• Gather qualitative data to further substantiate your earlier findings
• Observe people in action to view their behavior, cognition, and choices
• Create a broader survey instrument for target customers to gather quantitative data

NOTE: With any new findings from your product and problem validation process with potential customers,
remove your own preconceived notions from the process (often called boardroom or internal bias). Use the
newly gathered qualitative and quantitative data to determine if there is in fact a problem and a need for your
new product launch. If you can establish the product and problem validation with customers, then you can
move on to validating the market.

Validate your potential market by doing the following:

• Gather information about the market size; determine if your market is large enough to warrant your
product launch
• Have a rough idea of the size of your customer base, as well as the number of new customer acquisitions
resulting from your soon-to-be product launch
• Look for a smaller micro market or focus on a larger macro market; depending on your cost of goods,
pricing, and product margins you will need to determine if you have a valid market before you launch
• Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or Google Trends to see if customers are searching for a similar
product, revealing that a need has surfaced; the data would represent a trend in the market
• Conduct competitor research to see what size of the market your competitors have captured with their
current products; learn about competitor finances, teams, resources, media coverage, and overall
customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction
• Research if your product launch will have notable competitors following your footsteps – will you only
have the first-to-market advantage or will you be able to maintain more market share despite the
competition following suit?

After you validate the product, the problem, and a reason to launch in the market, you will move through
the rest of your GTM plan to set your product, channel, marketing, and evaluation strategies into place.

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