Proving market demand is crucial to winning over investors.

Start by looking at Google Trends and keyword searches to see if people are looking for what you’re trying to offer. That won’t wow investors on its own, but it can be a good start.

Much better way is actually to run a landing page test: put out a landing page and start your ads, and see if people sign up or, better yet, buy. You can also use this approach to find some beta and alpha users, talk to them in-depth, and iterate your product based on that feedback.

Talk to customers. Another vital approach is to conduct customer interviews. Show investors that you’ve done your homework. Identify your target personas and have long-form conversations with them. If you’re confident that you have a great solution, simply asking if they like it might be enough. But what you really want to know is whether they would pay for it.  If you have an e-commerce or a hardware product, a crowdfunding campaign is a great way to test market interest. Not only will you raise money, but a successful campaign will also indicate that people are interested in your product and will pre-order it.

Finally, you should consider launching a minimum viable product (MVP) and allowing it to go through a beta test to get a better sense of market interest, collect feedback, tweak your offering, and secure pre-sales or pre-orders. Validating your idea through these methods demonstrates to investors that your product is in real demand and has a clear path to success.