The most common reason new businesses fail isn’t bad execution—it’s building something nobody actually wants. Validation is the cure. It’s the work you do before spending serious time or money, to confirm there are real people with a real problem who will really pay you to solve it.
You don’t need a research degree. You need a handful of honest conversations and a few small tests. Here’s the process.
Free download: Milk Spider Startup Checklist (Word) — a step-by-step launch sequence from validating your idea through your first customers.
Start with the problem, not the product
It’s tempting to fall in love with your solution. Resist that for now. The thing you’re validating first is the problem: is it real, is it painful, and do enough people have it?
Write down, in one sentence:
- Who has this problem (be specific—"freelance designers," not "everyone")
- What the problem actually costs them—time, money, stress, or missed opportunities
- How they deal with it today
If you can’t fill in that third line, that’s a flag. A problem people aren’t already trying to solve—badly, with a workaround—is often a problem they don’t care enough about to pay you for.
Talk to 10 potential customers
This is the single highest-value thing you can do, and most founders skip it because it’s uncomfortable. Commit to speaking with at least 10 people who fit your target customer before you build anything.
Two rules make these conversations useful:
- Don’t pitch your product. The moment you describe your solution, people get polite and tell you what you want to hear. Explore their world instead.
- Ask about the past, not the future. "Would you buy this?" gets you optimism. "Walk me through the last time you dealt with this problem—what did you do?" gets you the truth.
A simple conversation guide:
- Tell me about the last time you ran into [problem].
- What did you do about it? What did that cost you?
- What’s the most frustrating part?
- Have you tried to fix it? What happened?
- If you had a magic wand, what would the ideal solution do?
After each chat, capture three things: the most useful quote, what surprised you, and how it changes your thinking. Patterns emerge fast—usually you’ll know more after five conversations than you expected.
Run a small, cheap test
Conversations tell you what people say. Tests tell you what they do—and those are often different things. Before committing real money, run one low-cost test that asks people to take a small action:
- A simple landing page describing the offer with a "notify me" or waitlist signup.
- Pre-orders or a paid pilot for your first few customers.
- A small ad spend ($50–$100) pointed at the landing page to see if anyone clicks and signs up.
- A manual version—deliver the service by hand for a few customers before you build any system or software.
The goal isn’t a perfect product. It’s a real signal: are strangers willing to give you their email, their time, or ideally their money?
Decide with kill criteria
Validation only works if you’re honest about what would make you walk away. Before you start, write down your kill criteria—the specific conditions that would tell you to stop. For example: "If I can’t find 10 people who’ll take a 20-minute call, the problem isn’t urgent enough," or "If my landing page gets 200 visitors and zero signups, the offer isn’t compelling."
This isn’t pessimism. It’s what keeps you from pouring months into a dead end because you were too invested to notice the signals.
What "validated" looks like
You’ve validated an idea when you can honestly say:
- Real people described the problem in their own words, unprompted.
- Their current workaround is clearly inadequate.
- At least a few of them took a real action—signed up, pre-ordered, or paid.
- You know which assumptions you still need to test next.
That’s enough to start building with confidence. Not certainty—nobody gets certainty—but evidence on your side.
FAQ
How many people do I really need to talk to?
Ten is a good minimum for a first pass. You’re looking for patterns, not statistical proof. If the same frustration comes up again and again, that’s your signal.
What if people say they like the idea but won’t commit?
That’s a real answer—and usually a "no." Enthusiasm is cheap. A small commitment (an email, a deposit, time on the calendar) is the test that matters.
Do I need a finished product to validate?
No. The whole point is to validate before you build. A landing page, a manual service, or a simple mockup is enough to test demand.
How long should validation take?
A few weeks, not months. If you find yourself "researching" for a long time without talking to a single customer, that’s avoidance, not validation.