Quickly validate if your idea is worth anything | Starter Story

When the co-founders of Starter Story, Pat Walls and Madison Skinner, sit down to evaluate a new business idea, their first move is not to build a prototype or survey friends. It is to open Google Chrome and run a keyword search. They are looking for evidence that people are already searching for what they want to sell—and that the volume is high enough to sustain a business. The core insight of this conversation is that validation is not a gut feeling or a single data point. It is a systematic process of layering cheap, public data sources until you either find a signal worth pursuing or kill the idea before you waste time and money.

The keyword-first method

The validation process starts with the Keyword Everywhere Chrome extension, which surfaces monthly search volume for any term a user types into Google. Walls and Skinner use this to orient themselves inside a broad market. If someone is interested in selling Swedish massage products, for example, they look at the search volume for "Swedish massage" and then dig into the related keyword list to find sub-niches that might be less competitive. The goal is not to confirm that a huge market exists—it is to find a pocket within a market that has clear, demonstrated demand. The extension costs a few dollars and takes minutes to use. It is the cheapest filter available.

Using Google Trends for direction, not certainty