A mistake that cost me $20K and 3 years, but taught me an important lesson.

I've made many mistakes in my 20-year entrepreneurial journey. During COVID times, I built several amazing (yep, truly amazing) products.

I had every product-launch checkbox ticked:

• Beautiful UI, Great UX

• Highly optimised code

• Beautifully documented code

• Every feature my users would demand on day 1

...and yet, no one cared. Heck, even the free users abandoned it. When I spoke with my potential users - they said it was a great product and signed up; but NEVER used it.

That's when I realised my mistake: I didn't validate the demand.

Market accepts products that solve a pain-point; and you need to validate the pain and the solution BEFORE you build your product.

It's funny how many my of my fellow founders make the same mistake. They get fascinated by cool tech-stack, build perfect product for months only to find that the world doesn't care.

So, how to validate your product idea?

Having failed multiple times; the only form of acceptable validation is people swiping their credit card for your software. Your long waitlists, cold promises from contacts don't count.

Go step by step:

MVP: An MVP is not a shitty, broken-ass product. It's a complete product but with a very limited feature set. It needs to have good UI and easy navigation. It should also solve the problem it promises to solve.

That's it. Don't complicate it. It's simple. Don't spend more than 2 weeks building your MVP.

Personal Network / PH / Reddit / LinkedIn : That's where your early customers are. Reach out to them personally. Try to get on call or request face to face meeting. If they buy from you - GREAT, if they don't - note down the feedback. Ask direct questions and get real feedback. Your friends will give you sugar-coated feedback. It doesn't help.

You should be able to validate your product in the first 45 days. Yeah, it's hard; but it's the right way.

If you are struggling; ask your question below. I'll be happy to help.