Spread the Idea Virus and Integrate Social Media To further promote your idea, consider adding social media sharing options that will allow interested users to share your website with their contacts and friends within their networks. This will help you get more traffic, without spending more money, and will hopefully result in higher conversion rates.

Maximize Engagement and Leverage the Crowd Now that you’ve launched your idea, set up proper tracking tools and start grassroots promotion via social networks — the validation process doesn’t stop there.

If you are ready to provide access,  launch an email campaign to communicate with potential customers. Begin the discussion by asking them what they expect to see in a product. Some potential users may be surprised or shocked to hear that you are asking for their opinion, but you can use this as an opportunity to fine tune your idea.

Also, this is a great place to interview your potential customer to find out how they will use the product, how much they would pay for such a product and/or service, and if they would encourage their friends to use it.

Test, Refine and Repeat

At this point, you have taken what was just an idea, and have validated it as something that people would want. Furthermore, you have found out what specific features people would look for in that product. This will save you time from creating features that people don’t care about. Continue moving forward with product development.

If this experiment has demonstrated a lack of interest in your concept, you may want to revisit the demand or utility of your idea. Ask people, specifically your target consumer, who can provide you with quality feedback. If the results demonstrate that your idea was a hit, get started on building your business.

As you begin the process of developing your million-dollar idea, use some of the lean startup principles shared by experienced entrepreneurs like Eric Ries and Hiten Shah. For example, build a minimal-viable-product to further test the details of your product. Develop a bare and basic prototype and utilize it as first generation version.

Continue to request customer feedback along the way and constantly improve your product based on what customers want. Regardless of what direction you take, you are now better suited to evaluate the potential success of your big idea. I wish you the best of luck.