I’ve been thinking a lot lately about early idea validation, especially before committing real time or money to building something.
Every time I have a new idea (app, SaaS, website, tool, whatever), I try the usual things: asking on Reddit, posting in communities, sending quick surveys, talking to people I know. I’ve also tried some of the newer AI-based idea validators and market analysis tools. They’re interesting and useful for brainstorming, but I keep feeling like they don’t fully answer the most important questions.
What I struggle with is getting clear, honest feedback from people who actually resemble the target user, and feedback that goes beyond “sounds cool” or generic opinions. Most of the time it’s hard to tell if the idea truly makes sense, if the problem is painful enough, or if someone would realistically pay for it. A lot of existing solutions seem to focus either on technical testing, metrics, or simulated feedback, but not so much on validating the business side early on.
That’s why I’ve been wondering if there’s room for a more structured way to validate ideas before building, by getting thoughtful, business-focused feedback from real people instead of just relying on intuition, AI opinions, or random comments.
So I’m curious: how do you personally validate ideas at this stage? What has actually worked for you, and what hasn’t? I’m genuinely interested in learning how others approach this problem.
How do you actually validate a product idea before spending months building it?
byu/Green-Attention-1469 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Green-Attention-1469
5 Comments
find a user that needs it so bad that they’ll pay you to build it
One workaround I found to talking to people was doing the process the product solves, manually first and realizing if it’s actually worth solving. Then offer that manual process for free to a target customer for a small time-period and ask them if they’d pay for it to be automated.
The best advice is to already be deeply ingrained in the industry or community you are trying to help.
Baring that, the first step is to figure out if you’d have competitors and how they are tackling the problem, and how important that problem really was.
If you don’t have competition, ask why isn’t there competition, rarely is the idea truly unique, be it in function or concept. That will indicate market and want by consumers.
If the idea is truly unique then it has to be a blind leak of faith because it’s an untested market.
Many ideas can be completely validated without talking to people. You have to first determine if the target user exists. People who will actually buy it will tell you why they want it
You see if the existing solution providers are making good money
Make an mvp, test it, iterate