The Simplest Way to Validate a Product Idea (Without Wasting Time and Money)
17 Sep 2025 #miscA long time ago, a friend asked me for a quote on a custom piece of software.
She and her friend wanted to start a marketing agency. And they wanted to build custom software to run it.
The problem? They didn’t have any savings or capital. And even worse, they didn’t have anyone to sell their service to. It was too early to build software.
I’ve been there too, on a different scale, coming up with value propositions and website copy for a freelance business I didn’t have yet. Later, it died with a single phone call.
After immersing myself in business podcasts and books, I’ve learned to:
- Come up with simple and cheap experiments to test a business idea
- Slap a price tag on whatever we’re building to see who buys
And simple experiments can validate big ideas.
The other day I watched a Diary of a CEO episode featuring a Netflix cofounder. How they validated their idea? He mailed a CD to his business partner to see if they could run a Blockbuster alternative by email. It was a cheap experiment. It worked.
Run experiments to learn, to grow, and to build something people really want.