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How Pre-Launching can Help You Validate Demand and Save Resources with Narek Vardanyan: An EOFire Classic from 2022

19 min episode · 2 min read
·
Narek Vardanyan

Episode

19 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Productivity, Relationships, Investing

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Pre-launch validation methodology: Create a two-page website showing product concept on page one with email signup, then price and discount reservation on page two requiring $10 deposit. Track conversion data to assess market demand before investing in full production, comparing performance against similar products in your category to determine viability.
  • Behavioral data over opinions: Base product decisions on actual customer behavior like credit card payments rather than survey responses, focus group feedback, or advice from friends and family. Google's engineering director Alberto Savoia developed this "prototyping" approach which drove several major Google product successes by testing market interest before building.
  • False positive and false negative risks: Creators commonly experience false positives where high confidence in a product leads to poor market performance, and false negatives where expected winners underperform. Pre-launch testing with real traffic and payment data eliminates reliance on gut feelings and provides objective metrics for go or no-go decisions on product development.
  • Consumer participation benefits: Pre-launch platforms let customers reserve upcoming products from favorite brands at discounted prices with full refund options if they cancel before shipping. This risk-free model allows consumers to influence product development through feedback and customization requests, making creation collaborative rather than creator-only decisions that may miss market needs.

What It Covers

Narek Vardanyan explains how pre-launching products through two-page validation websites can prevent the 80% failure rate caused by launching without market demand verification. He shares how testing with real customer payments before full development saves creators the typical 15 months and $300,000 wasted on unwanted products.

Key Questions Answered

  • Pre-launch validation methodology: Create a two-page website showing product concept on page one with email signup, then price and discount reservation on page two requiring $10 deposit. Track conversion data to assess market demand before investing in full production, comparing performance against similar products in your category to determine viability.
  • Behavioral data over opinions: Base product decisions on actual customer behavior like credit card payments rather than survey responses, focus group feedback, or advice from friends and family. Google's engineering director Alberto Savoia developed this "prototyping" approach which drove several major Google product successes by testing market interest before building.
  • False positive and false negative risks: Creators commonly experience false positives where high confidence in a product leads to poor market performance, and false negatives where expected winners underperform. Pre-launch testing with real traffic and payment data eliminates reliance on gut feelings and provides objective metrics for go or no-go decisions on product development.
  • Consumer participation benefits: Pre-launch platforms let customers reserve upcoming products from favorite brands at discounted prices with full refund options if they cancel before shipping. This risk-free model allows consumers to influence product development through feedback and customization requests, making creation collaborative rather than creator-only decisions that may miss market needs.

Notable Moment

Vardanyan describes his realization that increased experience didn't improve his ability to predict product success. He learned the correct answer to whether a product will succeed is always "I don't know" because creators are not their customers, and only actual behavioral data reveals truth.

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Episode Transcript

Boom. Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by HighLevel, the all in one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how pre launching can help you validate demand and save resources. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought Nurek Vardeyian and EOFire Studios. Nurek is a serial entrepreneur, author, and keynote speaker. He is a cofounder and CEO of the Crowdfunding Formula, one of the most successful crowdfunding marketing agencies. And today, we talk how to pre launch your product or idea as soon as possible. Don't rely on what your consumers are saying, but what they are doing, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Nurek and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all in one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Fire Nation, success isn't a solo journey. It's about who you surround yourself with. That's why I built the Freedom Circle, a powerful community of entrepreneurs ready to support, inspire, and share the ideas that move you forward. Visit freedom-circle.com to learn more. Naruk, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, John. What's up Fire Nation? Thanks for having me. Everything is amazing. So you can be wrong a lot. Your experience, your gut feelings, and your genius ideas in the shower mean absolutely nothing if you don't have reliable data that you can trust on. Fire Nation, I really hope you're taking this in because you know what? A lot of people are scared. They're scared of being wrong one time. They're scared of being wrong twice in a row. You just need to realize this is part of the process. This is part of the experience gathering. This is part of the process of becoming successful as an entrepreneur, and that's why we're talking about how pre launching can help you validate the demand and save resources spent on products that nobody wants. And I wanna dive right into this, Narek, with why. Why do 80% of product launches fail? That's a great question. So, you know, on average, there is this research which says that creators spent about fifteen months and about $300,000 on product development. And as a result, as you said, most of them fail. And the common reason is that actually there is no market demand. And it is really hard for creators to predict which products will fly and which ones won't solely based on their experience and available market data. And when creators pass through all these stages of creating a product such as ideation, design, prototyping, production, and then launching into the market, by the time …

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