Stop Validating Ideas

Hey Sid,

I appreciate the perspective you’re bringing to this discussion, but I’d like to challenge some of the examples and methods you’ve used to support your argument. While I see the point you’re trying to land, I believe there’s room to refine the understanding of customer validation.

Firstly, I think there’s a misunderstanding about what customer validation truly entails. It’s not solely about asking direct, straightforward questions like, “Would you pay for a tool that sends you a text message when your app breaks in production?” These kinds of questions, as you noted, can often lead to biased, overly simplistic yes-or-no answers.

• Customer validation is far more nuanced and dynamic. Founders have a wide range of tools and methods at their disposal to effectively test and validate their ideas. For instance:

• Prototyping: This could take many forms, such as creating a landing page to validate a value proposition, or building a simple mock-up to gauge user interest and gather feedback.

• Market Research: This involves diving into what already exists in the market. Analysing successful businesses in the same space can quickly indicate demand and provide insights into potential opportunities or pitfalls.

• UX Thinking & Validation: User experience methods like interviews, journey mapping, or usability testing can provide actionable insights into customer needs and behaviours beyond surface-level responses.

By leveraging these approaches, founders can gain a deeper understanding of their customers and the problem space without falling into the trap of confirmation bias. It’s not about just asking better questions—it’s about building an iterative, evidence-driven process to learn and adapt.

It is proven that asking customers is misleading, using this bad method is the fault of the one who uses it and not the fault of the principle of idea validation, so to validate the idea it is recommended to use something that can be shown to customers (like MVP or video), find a way to deliver it to them (like face to face or landing page), and ask them to take an action to obtain it or to express interest (like buying or signing up for a waiting list).

I always thought the same. I fully agree with your take.

If you build a full fledged product that takes months/years, it's bad. You built something people don't want and wasted so much time in doing so.
If you simple ask people about your idea before having something tangile, their feedback is often restricted because they tend not to see you as a builder. Most will either say your idea is bad. Most would say it's a great idea but only to be polite.
However, building a simple hacky scrappy version of a product, putting it out there for people to 'devour', would give you a sense if people want something like it. And will probably give you feedback on what to improve because you delivered a product, even if it's a scrappy one, instead of just words. If, however, it won't take off, you didn't waste months/years, but 2 weeks at most, preferably 1 week / product.

So, people should try to strike a balance. Not just word, not full fledged. MVP. Before talking to customers, not after. Show them you can both build something and articulate what you've built.