Test Before You Invest: Essential Validation Steps for Black Women Entrepreneurs

Your big idea might sound amazing, but do people want it? More importantly, will they pay for it? Here’s the catch: feedback from your warm circle—your family, friends, and close network—isn’t enough. While they may be supportive and kind, they’re not always objective, nor are they necessarily your target audience. To get meaningful insights, you need to test with real potential customers who have no emotional investment in your success.

• Test the waters: Instead of relying on compliments from your inner circle, set up a booth at a local fair or market. These spaces are filled with people who represent diverse perspectives and behaviors, making their feedback more actionable.
• Launch a landing page: Offer pre-orders or sign-ups to gauge genuine interest from those outside your immediate network. These are the people who will vote with their wallets, not just their words.
• Experiment with pricing: Don’t assume your warm circle’s feedback on price is accurate. Test different price points with your actual target audience to determine the sweet spot that aligns with their willingness to pay.

By expanding your testing pool beyond your warm circle, you’ll get honest, valuable feedback that helps you fine-tune your offering, avoid costly missteps, and position your business for real-world success.

Even the best products can fail if the delivery process—how your product or service reaches the customer—is inconvenient, inefficient, or misaligned with their needs. Delivery includes every step of how you present, sell, and fulfill your offering, from where and how customers purchase to how they ultimately receive it. A brilliant product paired with the wrong delivery method can completely derail an otherwise great business idea.

For example, you might have an incredible handmade product that sells well at markets but struggles to gain traction because customers prefer the convenience of online shopping or home delivery. Similarly, a service business might fail if appointments can only be booked in person, while competitors offer easy online scheduling.

Consider these scenarios when testing delivery:

• Location matters: Do your customers prefer a brick-and-mortar store, or would they rather buy online? Could offering both options expand your reach?
• Convenience counts: Are you making it as easy as possible for customers to access your product? Services like subscription boxes or on-demand delivery might boost sales by aligning with modern customer preferences.
• Bottlenecks kill demand: Are there delays in your fulfillment process or confusing checkout systems? These friction points can frustrate customers and lead to abandoned purchases, even if the product itself is excellent.

Testing delivery isn’t just about logistics—it’s about understanding what makes your customers’ lives easier. If your market prefers convenience over experience, you might need to rethink your model. Or, if they’re drawn to in-person interaction and a hands-on experience, delivery might need to reflect that.

For instance, if sales at an in-person pop-up event are underwhelming, but online pre-orders for the same product are robust, you’ve uncovered a critical insight. Adapting your delivery to fit customer preferences can mean the difference between a failed launch and a thriving business.

Your brand is often your first impression—make it count. A strong brand communicates value, builds trust, and attracts your ideal customer. Tropicana learned this lesson the hard way in 2009 when it attempted to rebrand its iconic orange juice packaging.

Tropicana, a well-established household name, introduced a new design aimed at modernizing its look. The classic image of the orange with a straw—symbolizing freshness and simplicity—was replaced with a sleek glass of juice and minimalist text. While the product inside remained the same, the new branding failed to resonate with customers. Sales plummeted by 20% in just two months, costing the company an estimated $30 million.

What Went Wrong?
Tropicana underestimated the emotional connection customers had with its original branding and messaging. The new design lacked the recognizable features that conveyed trust and quality, leaving consumers confused and disengaged. The attempt to modernize their look unintentionally alienated their loyal base.

Takeaway for Black women founders:
This case underscores the importance of validating your brand and messaging with your target audience. Before making major changes:

• Split-test branding elements: Run small-scale tests with different logos, taglines, or visual styles to see what resonates most.
• Gather customer feedback: Ask real customers—not just your team or inner circle—whether your branding aligns with their values and expectations.
• Refine and iterate: Use insights from testing to develop a branding strategy that connects emotionally with your ideal audience while communicating your value clearly.

Remember, your brand isn’t just a logo or design; it’s the promise you make to your customers. Make sure it reflects the quality and experience they can expect.

For service-based businesses—like coaching, consulting, or bookkeeping—validation is key, and Dropbox is a perfect example of how to do it effectively. Before investing heavily in building its file-sharing platform, Dropbox tested its concept using a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) strategy to gauge interest.

What They Did:
Instead of creating a fully functional product, Dropbox launched with a simple explainer video. This video demonstrated how the service would work—seamlessly syncing and sharing files across devices—and ended with a call-to-action inviting viewers to sign up for early access. The goal wasn’t to sell a finished product but to validate whether the concept resonated with potential customers.

The Results:
The explainer video went viral, generating 75,000 sign-ups in one night. This overwhelming response proved there was significant demand for the service before Dropbox even wrote a single line of code. The data collected from these sign-ups gave Dropbox the confidence and insights needed to move forward with development.

Takeaways for Sistahpreneurs:
You don’t need to spend months building out your service to test whether people want it. Instead, use a similar approach:

• Create a squeeze page or video: Highlight the core benefits of your service and invite potential customers to sign up for early access or more information.
• Test pre-launch interest: Promote a free webinar, coaching session, or resource to see how many people engage and sign up.
• Analyze engagement metrics: Use the number of sign-ups or leads to determine if there’s enough demand to justify moving forward.

Dropbox’s success shows that testing the concept, not just the product, can save time, money, and resources while giving you the clarity and confidence to grow your business strategically.