Idea Validation // How can you find and validate customers' problems without asking them?

How can you find and validate customers' problems for your startup/side project without asking them?

One way is to go and search within niched online communities (like Indie Hackers) that have AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions.

Why there? Because the audience that is voicing their questions/concerns is the most willing to look for (buy) a solution.

For indie makers, startups founders, or just any side project, you can use the 5-step process below 👇

1. go to Indie Hackers
2. search for AMA sessions within your niche
3. list all the questions in the comments in an Airtable file
4. go through each question one by one and tag them based on the pain point
5. generate a visual chart (e.g. donut) to visualize the main pain-points

And there you go 💡

You’ll end up with something like this 👇👇👇