1. The Illusion of Traction
TL;DR > The biggest mistake in validation is listening to what people say instead of watching what people do.
Validation is difficult because humans are polite. If you pitch an idea to someone, they will likely say "That's interesting!" to avoid hurting your feelings. If you count that as "validation," you are going to lose a lot of money.
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The Value of "Interesting"
If a prospect says your product is "interesting" but doesn't offer a credit card, an email, or a follow-up meeting, the conversation was worthless.
2. The Top 10 Mistakes
1. Asking "Would you use this?" (Future behavior is impossible to predict). 2. Pitching instead of listening. (You should speak 20% of the time, the customer 80%). 3. Asking your friends and family. 4. Building a massive MVP to test a tiny hypothesis. 5. Fearing someone will "steal" your idea. (Execution > Ideas).
Customer Discovery Talk Ratio
How much a founder should speak vs listen during a validation interview.
6. Confirmation Bias. (Only hearing the feedback you want to hear). 7. Focusing on the solution too early. 8. Treating a survey as definitive proof. (Surveys are notoriously unreliable). 9. Ignoring the "Willingness to Pay" test. 10. Not knowing when to pivot or quit.
Start at the beginning with our master guide: .