VALIDATE BEFORE YOU BUILD

The most expensive mistake in business is building something nobody wants. It happens constantly. Smart people spend months — sometimes years — building a product, only to discover at launch that the market doesn't care.

The fix is so obvious it's almost annoying: talk to people before you build anything.

Not your friends. Not your family. They will tell you your idea is great because they love you, and that feedback is worth exactly nothing. You need to talk to strangers who match the profile of your ideal customer — and you need to ask them about the problem, not the solution.

Ask people about their problem. Never ask if they'd buy your product. People lie when you ask them that. They don't lie when they're describing their own pain.

Here's what good validation actually looks like. You've identified a problem you want to solve. You find 10 people who have that problem. You have a 20-minute conversation with each — not a pitch, a conversation. You ask about their pain, their current workarounds, what they've already tried.

After 10 of those conversations, you'll know more about your market than most founders who've been building for six months. You'll know the exact language people use to describe the problem. You'll know what solutions they've already rejected. And you'll know whether this is painful enough that people actively want a fix — or just a minor annoyance they've learned to live with.

Only build for the first group. Minor annoyances don't make businesses. Pain points do.

The second form of validation is pre-selling. Before you finish building, offer it for sale. If nobody buys, that's information. If 10 people buy, you just funded your first version. Sell before it exists — it's how the most capital-efficient businesses operate.

Alex's ideal customer: the owner of a local small business — restaurant, salon, boutique, gym — who knows they should be more active on social media but either doesn't have time or doesn't know where to start.
Before building anything, Alex had conversations with nine local business owners. Not pitches — conversations. The question was always: 'How are you currently handling your social media?'
The pattern was almost identical across all nine: they posted when they remembered, they didn't understand why some content performed and others didn't, and they felt a low-level guilt every week a post didn't go out. None of them said 'I need a social media manager.' They said: 'I just don't have time for this.'
That phrase — 'I don't have time for this' — became the headline of Alex's first pitch. Not a feature. Not a process. A feeling the customer had already named.

Here are the 5 interview questions Alex used — adapted so you can apply them directly to your own business:

Q1: "How are you currently handling [the problem your business solves]?"

Why ask this: Opens the conversation naturally. Reveals whether they have a system at all and how much it's costing them in time or stress.

Q2: "What's the most frustrating part of it?"

Why ask this: Surfaces the emotional weight — not just the logical problem. The emotion is what drives the buying decision.

Q3: "Have you tried to solve this before? What happened?"

Why ask this: Tells you what alternatives they've already considered and why those failed. This is the data that sharpens your pitch.

Q4: "If this was working really well, what would that look like for your business?"

Why ask this: Reveals what success means in their terms — more revenue, more customers, less stress. Their answer becomes your deliverable.

Q5: "What would make you comfortable enough to hand this over to someone?"

Why ask this: Uncovers the real objections before you've made a single pitch. Build your offer around this answer.