/validate

name: validate
description: "Use this skill when the user needs to validate a business idea, test demand before building, run a smoke test, create an MVP experiment, or decide whether an idea is worth pursuing. Covers demand validation, smoke tests, fake-door tests, landing page experiments, and go/no-go decision frameworks for bootstrapped founders."

Idea Validation

The #1 reason startups fail is "no market need." Validation isn't about asking people if they'd use something — it's about observing whether they'll pay, sign up, or take action. This skill helps you test demand before writing a single line of code.

Core Principles

• Ideas are free. Validated demand is valuable. Never skip validation because you're excited.
• "Would you use this?" is a useless question. "Will you pay $X right now?" is the only one that matters.
• The goal of validation is to fail fast and cheap — not to confirm what you already believe.
• You don't need to build anything to validate. Landing pages, waitlists, and conversations come first.
• Validation is not a one-time event. You re-validate at every stage: idea, MVP, pricing, features.

Pressure-Test Your Idea

Before running experiments, pressure-test the idea itself. These six questions expose fatal flaws fast — answer them honestly, not optimistically.

Which Questions to Answer

| Your Stage | Focus On | |-----------|----------| | Pre-product (just an idea) | Q1, Q2, Q3 | | Have a prototype or early users | Q2, Q4, Q5 | | Have paying customers | Q4, Q5, Q6 |

The Six Questions

**Q1 — Demand Reality:** What evidence do you have — beyond your own experience — that someone else actually wants this? Not "I think people need it." What have you seen, heard, or measured?

**Q2 — Status Quo:** What are people in your field doing right now to handle this — even badly? What does that workaround cost them in time, money, or errors?

**Q3 — Desperate Specificity:** Name one specific person who needs this most. Not "dentists" — which dentist, at which practice, with what problem? If you can't name someone, you haven't found your customer yet.

**Q4 — Narrowest Wedge:** What's the smallest version of this someone would pay for this week — not after you build the platform? One screen, one workflow, one outcome.

**Q5 — Observation:** Have you watched a colleague struggle with this task without helping them? What surprised you about how they actually do it vs. how you assumed?

**Q6 — Future-Fit:** How does your industry change in 3 years, and does that make this tool more essential or less?

> **Interest is not demand.** Waitlist signups are not demand. Someone would be genuinely upset if it disappeared — that's demand.

> **"Everyone in my field needs this"** means you haven't found anyone specific yet. The more universal you think the need is, the less validated it actually is.

> **The status quo is your real competitor** — not the other startup. It's the spreadsheet-and-email workaround people already live with. You have to be dramatically better than "good enough."

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Validation Levels

Level 1: Problem Validation (Do People Have This Problem?)

Before you validate your solution, validate that the problem exists and is painful enough to pay for.

**Where to look for evidence:**

| Source | What to Look For | |--------|-----------------| | Reddit, forums, communities | People complaining about the problem repeatedly | | Google Trends | Search volume for problem-related terms | | Competitor reviews (G2, Capterra) | 1-3 star reviews mentioning unmet needs | | Twitter/X | People publicly frustrated with current solutions | | Your own experience | You've felt this pain yourself (strongest signal) |

**Tell AI:**

Research the problem of [describe the problem].
Find evidence that people are actively looking for solutions:
- Search volume for related terms
- Reddit/forum threads where people discuss this pain
- Competitors that exist (even partial solutions)
- How much people currently pay to solve this (or workarounds they use)
Summarize: Is this a real, painful, frequent problem?

Level 2: Solution Validation (Will People Want YOUR Solution?)

**The Mom Test** — Never ask leading questions. Instead:

| Bad Question | Good Question | |-------------|--------------| | "Would you use an app that does X?" | "How do you currently handle X?" | | "Would you pay for this?" | "What do you spend on solving X today?" | | "Do you think this is a good idea?" | "Tell me about the last time X was a problem." | | "Would this be useful?" | "What have you tried? What didn't work?" |

**Conversation template:**

1. "What's the hardest part about [area]?"
2. "Tell me about the last time that happened."
3. "How did you deal with it?"
4. "What didn't work about that solution?"
5. "If you could wave a magic wand, what would change?"
6. "How much time/money does this cost you today?"

Talk to 10-15 potential customers. If 8+ describe the same pain with intensity, you have signal.

Level 3: Willingness to Pay (Will They Open Their Wallets?)

The strongest validation signals, ranked:

| Signal | Strength | |--------|----------| | They pre-pay before the product exists | Strongest | | They sign up for a waitlist with a credit card | Very strong | | They sign up for a waitlist with email | Strong | | They click a "Buy" button (fake door test) | Moderate | | They say "I'd definitely pay for that" | Weak | | They say "That's a cool idea" | Worthless |

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For Domain Experts: Your Network Is Your Validation Lab

If you're a [profession] building for other [professionals], you already have what most founders spend months trying to get: direct access to target customers.

• **Skip the cold outreach.** Message 10 peers you actually know: "Hey, how do you handle [pain]? I'm thinking about building something."
• **You've already had 1,000 customer conversations.** Mine your memory: what do colleagues complain about at conferences, in group