I spent six months building a private repo, only to realize nobody wanted it

Last year, I locked myself in a room and wrote about 15,000 lines of React.

I was convinced I had the next big thing. I didn't talk to a single soul because I was terrified someone would steal my idea.

When I finally launched on Product Hunt, I got a handful of upvotes from friends and exactly zero paying customers. It was a gut-punch that cost me half a year of my life.

I realized I treated building as validation. It’s the most expensive mistake you can make.

Now, I don't write a single line of code until I find a 'hair-on-fire' problem. If someone’s hair is on fire, they don't care if the hose is the wrong color. They just want the fire out.

I started hunting for people who were already complaining on Reddit and Discord. Not just 'this would be cool' comments, but people actively looking for workarounds or complaining about high costs.

I found that if I couldn't get 10 people to hop on a 15-minute call or click a 'pre-order' button within a week, the idea was dead. No amount of clean code was going to save a product nobody asked for.

I’ve been refining a 4-step framework to help me avoid falling into that build-first trap again. It starts with finding that specific pain point and doing a quick data check before even opening VS Code.

I built a tool to help automate this whole validation process, so I (and hopefully you) don't waste another six months: https://ideatolaunch.co

How do you guys decide when an idea is actually worth the dev time, or do you just build and pray?