The Validation Problem

It's easy to fall in love with your own idea. You've imagined the product, sketched the logo, maybe even picked the domain name. But before you invest months (or years) and real money into building, you need to answer one honest question: Do enough people actually want this?

Validation doesn't mean asking your friends if it sounds cool. It means finding evidence that real strangers will pay for — or meaningfully engage with — your solution.

Step 1: Get Crystal Clear on the Problem

Before validating your solution, validate the problem. Ask yourself:

  • Who specifically experiences this problem?
  • How frequently do they experience it?
  • How painful is it on a scale of 1–10?
  • What do they currently do to solve it?

If people are actively paying for an imperfect workaround, that's a strong signal the problem is real. If they say it's a problem but aren't doing anything about it, that's a warning sign.

Step 2: Talk to Potential Customers

Conduct at least 10–15 conversations with people who fit your target customer profile. The goal of these conversations is not to pitch — it's to understand their world. Follow the principles in Rob Fitzpatrick's book The Mom Test: ask about past behavior, not hypothetical future behavior.

Bad question: "Would you use an app that does X?"
Better question: "Tell me about the last time you struggled with X. What did you do?"

Step 3: Build a Smoke Test

A smoke test is a minimal online presence designed to measure real demand before anything is built. Common formats include:

  • Landing page — Describe your product and add a "sign up for early access" or "join the waitlist" button. Track how many people actually click it.
  • Pre-order page — Offer your product at a discount before it exists. Payment intent (even a small one) is much stronger signal than an email address.
  • Crowdfunding campaign — Platforms like Kickstarter let you test both demand and messaging simultaneously.

Step 4: Run a Concierge MVP

Before building automated software or a scalable system, do it manually for a few real customers. If you're building a meal planning app, manually send a weekly meal plan to 5 people via email. If you're building a marketplace, manually connect buyers and sellers yourself.

This lets you learn what customers actually value, discover edge cases you'd never have anticipated, and earn your first revenue — all without writing a line of code.

Step 5: Measure What Actually Matters

During validation, the key metrics to watch are:

  1. Conversion rate — Of everyone who sees your offer, how many take the target action?
  2. Willingness to pay — Are people putting money down, even a small deposit?
  3. Retention signal — Do your early users come back unprompted?
  4. Referral — Do early users tell others about it without being asked?

What "Validated" Actually Looks Like

There's no single threshold that declares an idea validated, but a useful rule of thumb: if you can't get 10 people to genuinely want your product (not just say they like the idea), getting 1,000 or 10,000 will be much harder than you think.

Validation is about reducing risk, not eliminating it. Once you have real signals from real people, you can build with far greater confidence — and much less wasted effort.