Test 1: The Minimum Audience Test The first question isn’t “How big is the total market?”; it’s “Are there enough of the right customers, and can you reach them?” Narrow to a true niche that is large enough to sustain you, easy to reach, and behaviorally coherent. Then speak to those people firsthand to learn what they’ll actually buy and why; you’re testing both size and reachability at once. The guidance here is explicit: a niche should be big enough to give you sufficient custom, reachable through clear channels, and share common characteristics that lead to similar buying decisions .

Test 2: The Demand Surface Test Before you build, map the demand surface where your buyers already search, talk, and shop.

• Find where they congregate online and off; look for discussion density, recurring questions, and news momentum. Use trade press, associations, directories, and simple news alerts to watch steady signals of interest and activity .
• Ask: “Where do prospects go now to find products like this?” and “What triggers the purchase?” You’re verifying where demand lives and how it behaves .

Test 3: The Problem-to-Benefit Match People don’t buy products; they buy progress in their lives. Profile the customer’s values, constraints, and buying style, then translate your features into the specific benefits they care about most. Your job is to understand your product’s value in the customer’s life, using both demographics and psychographics, and to communicate “what’s in it for them” in their terms .

Test 4: The Market Size and First-Slice Calculation Do a quick, reality-based TAM-to-SOM estimate that forces you to be concrete:

• Define your exact segment (for example, “women 35–55 in X city who buy independent athleisure twice a year”).
• Estimate total customers and total annual spend for that segment.
• Count current outlets/competitors, infer the average revenue per outlet, and then decide what share you can rationally take based on your differentiators and distribution plan. This grounded calculation is a more honest viability anchor than a broad TAM slide because it forces assumptions about customers, spend, and competitive density .

Test 5: The Channel Access Test It’s not viable if you can’t consistently reach buyers. List the channels your target actually uses and test access to each one: search, marketplaces, retail partners, professional associations, events, or direct outbound. The early research task is explicit—figure out where your customers go and how you’ll communicate with them—and it’s a core ingredient of viability, not a nice-to-have .

Test 6: The Competitive Gap and USP Test Study who is succeeding now and why, and locate the concrete gaps you can fill. Clarify what makes you meaningfully different—faster, more reliable, more specialized, more convenient—and why that difference matters to the niche you chose. This is where market research pays off: it helps you see how strong competitors are, how you can position around them, and how to articulate a usable USP that customers will pay for .

Test 7: The Growth-Current Test Even great operators swim harder in stagnant water. Favor niches tethered to sectors with multi‑year growth; it amplifies everything you do. The point is practical: being in a growth area can override other “secrets of success,” so deliberately seek year‑on‑year growth signals, from trade association stats to persistent media coverage and supplier feedback on rising demand .

Test 8: The Pre‑Sale Proof Test Before inventory or code, try to take money—or at least secure strong commitments. Options include:

• Preorders or deposits for a limited early batch.
• A concierge or manual version of the service for the first 10–20 customers.
• A simple survey plus offer test to rank benefits and price sensitivity, followed by interviews. The aim is the same as classic research: prove the concept works before you fund it. Direct conversations and surveys, paired with a small real offer, give you hard proof faster than opinions do .

Test 9: The Unit Economics Sketch Ask and answer a few viability mathematics questions:

• How often will they buy? At what expected price? How long is the sales cycle? Your research should estimate purchase frequency, timing, and willingness to pay, making early revenue forecasts less guesswork and more grounded .
• When do you break even? Map the steps from first contact to cash and estimate time to break even; it’s on the essential checklist for a reason .

Test 10: The Founder–Niche Fit Test Niches aren’t just market math; they’re a fit between your skills, your motivation, and the business’s demands. A concise early triage is useful: Money (can you fund the runway?), Management (can you run it well?), and Motivation (will you stay with it?) . Investors emphasize that leadership quality often outweighs market specifics in the early going, because persistent execution is what converts potential into results . Also consider whether your existing strengths and interests align with the niche; enjoying the work often correlates with the stamina viability requires .

Test 11: The Foothold-and-Adjacency Plan Viability improves if there’s a credible path from a small foothold to broader revenue. Write two timelines: a short‑term, tightly focused entry plan and a longer‑term expansion plan. It’s not just planning theater; it forces you to reconcile whether the niche can support your near‑term survival and your later ambitions .

Test 12: The Gut‑but‑Verified Test Intuition can be catalytic in ambiguous markets—several founders launched on conviction before the data looked friendly—but early research still saves time and money by preventing wrong turns. Combine your hunches with just enough validation to avoid self‑deception; belief plus targeted testing is a more reliable path than belief alone .

A short numeric example Say you’re considering a specialty service: on‑site bicycle maintenance for office parks in a specific metro area.

• Segment: office workers who commute by bike to campuses in Zones A and B.
• Total buyers and spend: 22,000 potential customers who collectively spend about X per year on maintenance (use local stats, supplier input, and association data to estimate).
• Competitive count: 110 shops/independent mechanics currently serving similar demand.
• Inferred average revenue per provider: total spend divided by providers gives a base expectation. Decide what share you can take with a differentiated mobile service and on‑site convenience, then work backward to required daily jobs and conversion rates. This is the workbook’s practical approach: define the segment, estimate total spend, count providers, and derive a realistic share instead of hand‑waving a giant TAM .

What strong signals look like

• A niche you can describe with precision, that is big enough, reachable, and cohesive; plus 15–30 verified conversations where buyers echo the same needs and agree your benefits are the ones that matter to them .
• Evidence of market growth or durable interest, from trade data to steady conversation volume and supplier confirmation of rising demand .
• A first slice calculation that holds up under conservative assumptions, with a path to break even that doesn’t depend on heroics .
• At least one distribution channel you can access repeatedly, not just once .

What red flags look like

• A niche that’s too fuzzy to target; you cannot identify where buyers already go to seek solutions, which means you’re guessing at channels and messaging .
• “Differentiation” that reads like adjectives rather than operational realities customers will value and pay for .
• A sector with flat or declining demand unless you’ve found a clearly underserved sub‑segment or distribution angle that incumbents ignore .

Two instructive patterns

• The hyper‑focused niche that punches above its weight. A small, passionate audience can be enough if you tailor product and channel tightly; think of niche gifts aimed at ferret owners that went from zero to exporting rapidly by aiming at a very specific, reachable group with unique offerings .
• The distribution‑led niche. A product can win a tiny sliver of a huge market by dominating a specific channel or use‑context; for example, a beer brand that became the default choice across thousands of Indian restaurants by targeting that single route to market with focus and persistence .

From tests to decisions: go, pivot, or pause

• Go when your niche passes most tests with at least one channel you can repeatedly access, a believable first slice of the market, early proof of willingness to pay, and a break‑even path in sight .
• Pivot when the niche is reachable but the problem‑benefit match is off; adjust the offer, not necessarily the audience, and re‑run Tests 2–4 .
• Pause when growth currents are weak and you can’t find a distribution foothold; look for a tighter sub‑segment or a channel you can own before you scale .

The meta‑lesson All these tests are really one habit: evidence before exuberance. Research is not bureaucracy; it’s how you de‑risk, forecast with fewer illusions, and prove your concept quickly enough to earn funding or customer cash. There’s a reason the most pragmatic advice for early founders is to “research the marketplace and prove your concept works before attempting to get funding” and to keep your research tightly tied to who buys, why, where, and at what price . In short: no customers, no business—and the right viability tests make customers visible sooner .