Before You Validate Your Solution...Validate Your Problem
Founders often make the mistake of discussing their solution first, rather than clearly identifying the problem. Validation can take many forms and I want to highlight 3 of the most common:
Market Research: Critical and by far the least impactful. Market research is a need to know, but investors won't be overly impressed that you have an understanding of the market you operate in. Comes with the territory!
Digital Marketing: Cheap & easy. Full-scale marketing can cost thousands, but running a few $5/day ads directed to your landing page and monitoring is cheap. Think through the suite of options including: Social Media, SEO, PPC, blogs, podcasts, email marketing, influencers, and content marketing.
Customer Interviews: Peak validation and completely free. Hard for even the most seasoned investor to argue a problem doesn't exist if you show them +100 confirmatory interviews, surveys, etc. Not every customer engagement is going to be validating, but this isn't about a singular customer. It's about a thorough understanding of each customer's problem/context in order to best extract commonalities in order to serve the needs of the "cumulative customer."
@csallen has an amazing article about this where he says: "Focus on the solution last because it's the most flexible thing you can change". You can't change the problem, you can't change the market, you can't change the acquisition channels. But you can mold your solution.
Love it, so simple and clear