What validation actually means
Validation is not asking friends whether your idea is good. It is gathering evidence that a specific buyer has a costly problem, already spends time or money working around it, and would pay for your specific offer.
A compliment is not evidence. A described past behavior, a price reaction, a signed pilot, or a payment is.
Step 1: Write the hypothesis in one line per field
Vague ideas cannot fail, so they cannot be tested. Write down:
- Buyer: the person who decides and pays, not just the person who feels the pain.
- Problem: what goes wrong, how often, and what it costs.
- Offer: what you would sell, in one sentence.
- Price: the number you would charge, so buyers can react to something real.
- Current alternatives: spreadsheets, services, or software they use today.
Step 2: Decide what would change your mind before you look
Write pass and fail thresholds first. If you set them after seeing results, you will rationalize. Killgate locks the validation plan before research begins for this reason.
The collision repair sample report, for example, sets targets of 8 qualified buyers, 30% or more with strong pain, 4 or more price-positive buyers at the locked price, and 2 or more verified paid pilots.
Step 3: Search public evidence for and against the idea
Start with sources you can cite: industry data, practitioner forums, competitor pricing pages, job posts, and regulation. Then search on purpose for disconfirming evidence: incumbents that already do this, price pressure, and constraints you cannot remove.
Step 4: Name what buyers do today
If buyers spend no money, time, or effort on the problem, the pain may be weak. If they already pay for something close, you have a budget to compete for and a reason you must be clearly different.
Step 5: Talk to buyers, then test payment
Interviews show how the problem is handled today. Payment tests show whether solving it is worth money. Do both before building.
Step 6: Decide and write down why
End with one of four decisions: build, keep testing, change direction, or stop. Record the evidence behind it so you can revisit the call when facts change.
Common mistakes
- Validating the market instead of your specific offer and price.
- Counting compliments and signups from friends as demand.
- Moving the goalposts after a bad result.
- Adding features to rescue a weak core idea. A new core mechanism is a new hypothesis and needs its own test.