How I Tested My Business Idea and Got 6 Leads!

What’s your first step when you get a business idea? Do you immediately jump into creating a website, coding an application, or building a product? I used to do that too. But after spending a year building a business and getting zero leads, I realized I was doing something wrong.

I almost gave up on business. Then I got into a conversation with my friend Peter, who called just to ask how I was doing. He runs a successful home rental business, and of course, I told him about all my frustrations.

He asked me, “How did you validate your business idea with potential customers?”

“What do you mean?”

Then he said something that completely changed my thinking.

“My friend, when you get a business idea, your ONLY job at the beginning is to find out as quickly as possible if people really care about the problem you're trying to solve and if they're willing to pay for your solution.”

So what's the secret I wish I knew before starting a business?

Test your business idea before you build anything!

Today, I'll show you how I validated my business idea on LinkedIn in 2026 with no money and during my two days off.

P.S. I got 6 leads! That's 6 more than I got after spending one year building a business.

1) No Website is Needed to Test a Business Idea.

After my conversation with Peter, I kept thinking about why I spent 1 year building something that looked amazing to me, but nobody else felt the same way.

When I read the book Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.

I totally got it!

I was behaving like a worker in a regular job. I gave myself tasks and just completed them. Every day felt like I was moving forward, but everything stopped when the tasks were done.

And then what's next? Nothing! Because there are no more tasks without customers.

Being an entrepreneur is a completely different game.

So let me save you one year of your life. Speak with your customers first before building anything. And you can do it with no money and just two days off, just like I did.

2) How I Tested My Business Idea and Got 6 Leads!

A) I took the idea out of my head and put it on paper.

It’s basically a summary of what I had in my mind written down on paper. This is very important because without it, the business can’t even start. Nobody buys a product from a business owner’s head.

I wrote down these 4 questions:

• What is the business idea? 

• What makes it unique? 

• What problem does it solve? 

• How will it make money?

It can also quickly tell that the idea doesn’t solve any real problem for customers or won’t make any money.

Tip: Please don’t download business plan templates that make you think about details like how much salary you would pay your marketing team.

The best is to keep it as simple as possible.

B) The most important thing is a specific target audience.

You know what I wanted to hear two years ago?

This! If you think you can randomly offer your product to anybody, there’s no chance it will work. You have to know exactly who is struggling with the problem you’re trying to solve.

If you don’t know who can benefit from your business, there is no business.

I asked these 3 questions:

• What goals do they have?

• What do they care about?

• What do they struggle with?

How the customer looks on Linkedln:

• Location

• Job Title

• Business info

• About

• Headline

My example of a target audience on LinkedIn:

After that, I did deep research on potential customers and created a list of the 50 best contacts.

The first message matters.

You can have an amazing idea and the right audience, but if your message sounds like boring pitch, it can ruin the whole process.

I reached out the people in two ways:

• Linkedln Sales Navigator.

• Messaging my existing connections.

  
  

Tip: Sending a message for testing together with the connection request never works.

How I prepared my message:

• Interesting subject line (Sales Navigator).

• Keeping it as short as possible.

• Adding some value.

• Starting with them, not me.

The message has to provide some value, but it also has to be obvious that you’re not trying to sell anything, just get them interested in filling out a short form.

C) A simple question form is the best tool for testing.

Google Forms is free and super easy to use. The most important part is asking the right questions.

I prepared a simple example of how the form can look:

I asked these questions in my form:

• Are they my target audience?

• Do they really struggle with the problem I’m trying to solve?

• How are they solving it now?

• How could this solution improve their situation?

• Are they already paying for a solution like this?

There was one more question that changed the whole game.

• Would they be interested in early acces and leave their email?

That's the crazy part. I just wanted to test my idea.

But I actually got 6 leads from 50 messages!

Reaching out to customers can feel a bit uncomfortable.

I totally get it, but everybody goes through the same thing in the beginning, and early entrepreneurs have to accept it as part of the journey.

It took one hour. I already had 50 contacts prepared in Excel and just sent 50 messages.

D) Simple schedule + what to expect from the testing.

Let's say it again what Petr told me. The goal is to quickly find out if people actually care and if you're solving a real problem.

To measure the results, I looked at:

• Messages sent.

• How many people complete the form.

• How many people are interested in the problem you’re focusing on.

• How many people are willing to pay.

• How many emails you collect.

There’s no magic number that tells you to move forward.

But if nobody is interested, nobody wants to pay, and nobody leaves their email, you already have your answer.

Easy Schedule:

• Tuesday: Send 50 messages.

• Wednesday: Review the responses.

And now, let's look at the results:

• Messages sent: 50/50 

• Form responses: 6/7

• Need help with testing: 3/4

• Willing to pay: 4/5

• Email leads: 4/6

Here are a few examples from the test:

What I Learned:

• There is space for business content, but it has to be real, specific, and authentic.

• People are tired of reading only success stories. They want to hear about failure, the ugly parts, pivots, and the motivation to keep going and take action.

• There may be potential for services that people are willing to pay for, such as idea testing, validation, market research, and help with landing pages. These services could be offered through this blog.

3) Conclusion: Be Aware of Your Situation

Let me tell you one more story.

My first business required partners and companies, and the product was for company employees. I felt soo overwhelmed because I had no experience, and every step seemed like shooting in the dark. It was like climbing Mount Everest without equipment or experience. There was no joy, and the worst part was that I didn't learn much because I never really moved forward.

I think the early stage of entrepreneurship is all about learning.

Now I always ask myself this question:

• Can I start marketing my product within 4 weeks?

Because that's where I see the hardest part. Bringing people to your landing page. Getting people to test your MVP, service, or whatever you're building.

We shouldn't spend more than 4 weeks working on something without customer validation.

Otherwise, we're just creating noise, not a business.

We're not workers or managers anymore. We're entrepreneurs!

Let's summarize what we covered in this article:

• Businesses have rules, and we can't skip them. One of the biggest rules is testing your business idea with real customers.

• Don't build anything before speaking with customers.

• The most important part? Who is your ideal customer.

• By testing, we can already start collecting leads.

• We have to be aware of our situation and stay humble about whether we can actually deliver the product or service to the customer.