Insights — Channel Creation & New Revenue Streams — 3 min read
Test a Productised Service Before Building It
The biggest risk in productising a service is building a complex 'product' that nobody actually wants to buy. Validation is about proving the commercial case before you prove the technical one.
In short
To test a productised service, use the 'Concierge MVP' method: sell the fixed-price outcome as if it were a product, but deliver it manually (or with simple tools) behind the scenes. If you can't sell the outcome to three real customers at a profitable price point, the product isn't worth building. This approach validates the demand, the pricing, and the scope before you commit to any development or infrastructure costs.
Many service business owners have a folder full of ideas for productised services — 'apps' or 'platforms' that would turn their expertise into passive income. The tragedy is that many of these ideas, if built, would fail. Not because they were bad ideas, but because the market didn't value them enough to pay the price required to make them profitable.
The secret to successful Channel Creation is not to 'build it and they will come'. It is to 'sell it and then build it'. By testing the demand and the margin first, you avoid the trap of spending six months and £50k on a product that solves a problem nobody cares about. Validation is the art of finding the 'No' early, so you can focus on the 'Yes' that matters.
The Concierge MVP: Delivery Behind the Curtain
A 'Concierge MVP' (Minimum Viable Product) is a service that looks like a product to the customer but is actually a human being doing the work. If you want to launch an AI-driven auditing tool, start by selling a 'Manual Audit' for a fixed price. If customers won't pay for the manual version, they definitely won't pay for the automated one.
This method allows you to learn three things that a survey or a 'landing page with a waitlist' never will:
- Real Price Sensitivity: Will they actually sign a contract and pay an invoice?
- Scope Exceptions: What bespoke requests do they make that will break your eventual product design?
- Value Perception: What part of the service do they actually care about? (Hint: it's rarely the part you think).
The 'Letter of Intent' (LOI) Test
If you can't deliver a concierge version, use the LOI test. Pitch the productised service to five ideal customers. If they like it, ask them to sign a non-binding Letter of Intent that says, 'If you build this for £X, we will trial it for three months'. If they won't sign a piece of paper that costs them nothing, they won't sign a contract that costs them money.
The Evans Validation Sequence
The Channel Creation Programme follows a disciplined validation sequence: Identify → Validate Demand → Validate Margin → Build. We use the Opportunity Engine to find target customers and the Customer Expansion Engine to test the proposition with your existing base. Only when we have evidence of demand do we recommend investing in the building phase.
Could your business support another route to revenue?
Evans Channel Creation identifies, validates and builds additional revenue channels from capabilities a business already has — B2B to D2C, D2C to B2B, product to service, recurring revenue or partners — and says so plainly when a channel should not be built. Programme from £1,995 + VAT per month over six months.
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