Proven hypothesis are dime a dozen and they're all around

Find out what is known, before testing hypothesis on your own.

When the focus is on listing and prioritizing things that you want to prove, for your new product it’s easy to miss out what is known already. It’s no need to re-invent the wheel. In this case it’s no need to prove what already been proven.

There are something had happened on the market (1), something is happening right now (2) and there are actual results (3). Why not to get into all this vast of knowledge that directly relates to what you plan to do. Chase for gems - the data that is meaningful, open and has relevant business value in it.

Where to find the data:

Industry news websites;
Competitor’s news section on an own website;
Expert reviews / Niche influencer posts;
Niche forums;
Product and company review websites.

Finding proven hypothesis

Let's go through some examples of what to look for and how to interpret the information. These examples aren't perfect, their job is to be a though igniters:

ℹ️ A competitor, company C sold to a provider of online tests, company H for $100 mln.

✅ The product you’re developing has a synergy with an educational company.

🤔 Are there possible synergies with your product and another vertical markets?

🤔 Are there possible synergies with an educational provider on the market?

ℹ️ A competitor settled a contract with a local bank for integrating own product.

✅ There is a perceived or actual need in your product by a bank.

🤔 Is there a perceived or actual need in your product by other players from banking or financial sector?

🤔 Is there a local market for our product that we can easily reach?

ℹ️ SEO analytics shows that a competitor gains 500k visitors per month to their blog.

✅ People are interested in the the theme of the product.

🤔 What is the gap between what is promised and what the competitor’s product actually delivers?

🤔 What other themes in this niche we can utilize?

Summary

It makes a perfect sense to do a market research at the start. For entrepreneurial endeavor it’s important to deconstruct news and happenings into proven hypothesis you can build upon. So at the end of the day you’re standing on the shoulders of giants. Right from these shoulders you have a perfect chance to innovate.