Jason Fried says you cannot validate an idea

This is mostly just semantic differences. If you listen to what he's saying, he's not using "validate" in the same way most of us do. He's assuming validate means "be certain it will work." Which of course he's right about: you can't actually be certain anything will work until it's out there working.

But you can increase your confidence levels pre-launch. I wish he would've talked about how he does that.

I asked him about validating ideas the IH podcast episode with him last year, and he said…

• "The best way to validate your product is to put a price on it and release it to the market and see if people are willing to pay for it. That’s the best way."
• "I don’t think you can ask people if things are good or not. I don’t think throwing something out there for free for a long time, then charging for it, is valuable."
• "I think the best thing to do is just heads down, do what you think is the best thing. Something that you believe in, something that you can stand behind. Something that you’re doing because you understand why you’re doing it, versus doing it because you read it on a blog post. You don’t totally understand it but it sounded good so, like, that’s what we’re going to do. You have to make sure that all the way down to the bottom, there’s support. There’s foundation that you’ve poured, that you understand."
• "Not to say that you should be ignorant, although I do think there’s a lot of value in it, to be honest…"
• "…it’s good to have a little bit of surface information, to have a little sense and be kissed by some of that. But ultimately you’ve got to figure out at the core of you, what you want to do and how you want to do it and be true to yourself…"

It's still a bit vague. If I had to summarize what I got from it in my own words, it's:

• The best way to validate is to launch. I disagree. That's the most accurate way to validate, but also the riskiest and most time consuming, so you should begin validating far before that imo. Unless you started so small that you can launch in a day or two.
• You have to make sure you understand what you're doing and why. I agree with that. I would he would talk more about how he comes to that understanding, because that's what validation is.
• You need to strong personal convictions around what you make. I agree with that. David Hsu of Retool also made this point on the podcast recently.
• Asking other people, "Is this a good idea," is worthless. I agree with that.
• It's not bad to be ignorant about others' advice. I disagree. IMO knowledge is power, and what you should do is guard against blindly following advice or copying things you don't understand. Sure, ignorance is one way to guard against that, but it's a lazy way, and you miss out on some great info.

What do you think of Derek Sivers opinion on that? He founded CDbaby, sold it for 20 Mio USD. I like the way he sees it. We all have ideas, few are those who build, even fewer are those who manage to sell it.

Be an Executioner
It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an nda to tell me the simplest idea.)

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:
Awful idea = -1
Weak idea = 1
So-so idea = 5
Good idea = 10
Great idea = 15

Brilliant idea = 20
No execution = $1
Weak execution = $1.000
So-So execution = $10.000
Good execution = $100.000
Great execution = $1.000.000
Brilliant execution = $10.000.000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20.000.000.

That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution.

I find a lot of these arguments, similar to ones about 'MVPs' come down to totally different interpretations on what these things mean.

In this video Jason seems to suggest you can't 'validate' something until you've built it and see how the market reacts.

Whether he's right or not comes down to what 'validate' means to you.

If you think 'validate' means 'guarantee eventual success', then he's absolutely right.

If like me, you think 'validate' means 'do some research to assess how important the need is to people first', then he's surely wrong? Countless success stories of people doing this.

Guess I'm going back to aimlessly buying domain names

I agree with this, to some extent and of course context specific, and actually so often people here on IH are seeking helping in validating an idea.

I wrote about validating a vision, as I realised recently that I never really validated ideas like people preach...which is kind of along the lines of what he said.

This is so interesting to talk about. My 1st reaction is that his validation means something different from what we usually talk about. He meant certainty.

I was just putting down my thoughts about how a founder can know whether their idea is worthwhile to pursue. I learned it the hard way in 2019 pivoting a 6-month product after burning a lot of our runway.

One thing I want to point out is that a lot of founders/builders like to jump to "user interviews" to validate an idea, but now (after failing) I've decided that I would spend a little bit more time with myself to evaluate the idea before taking it to others. And this is because a lot of problems are really not worth solving, even if there are people who say they want it.

Now I challenge myself with questions like:

• Is my idea part of a global trend?
• How long is time to value or AHA moment? Can users use it in seconds, minutes, or days and weeks?
• Is it easy for people to tell their colleagues or friends? Can they try it out immediately?

This is the framework I use that will help us founders think through early ideas and do the 1st layer of validation before finding people to talk to.

Validation is about certainty. It's an activity you do to confirm the truth.

Business is done under uncertainty. Validation is not a valid activity in the world of uncertainty. Instead, you make guesses, place bets, form a strategy, speculate, and so on.

Different verbs, different mindset.

I like Alexander Osterwalder's approach. He considers it a spectrum of evidence. So asking someone what they think is quick but provides weak evidence. That doesn't mean its a bad place to start. You then go up the spectrum to a landing page with a mock product that can be purchased is higher on the spectrum. It takes more time but your evidence is stronger. There is a good interview on the "Full Ratchet" podcast. I also read his book "Testing Business Ideas" which goes into a lot of detail on the topic. I agree with others, it comes down to what do you mean by validated which is subjective.

I 100% agree. To which degree is an idea really validated?

I could get 10 people to pre-order my product, but that doesn't mean shit if they churn within a few weeks of using it.

With that said, I don't think that Jason speaks about the same type of ideas that are popular here.

Most Indiehackers build curated lists on Airtable or other one-off products. These are extremely easy to validate since you only have to make the sale once.

Validating a SaaS or other subscription businesses is a whole different game.

Great conversation on a complicated subject.

Personally, I think the product/service lifecycle goes like this:

1. Ideation
2. Research - competition, market size/opportunity, differentiators
3. Validation - landing page, MVP, actual product
4. Traction - user adoption, revenue or your favorite metric
5. Growth - stepping on the pedal somewhat and investing in the right places (or removing friction)
6. Expansion - adding features and functionality to reach new markets or new customers

You can "fail" in any step along the process but in my opinion that doesn't mean that the idea wasn't validated. If you validate the idea and fail in a later stage it was because you failed to achieve the traction, growth, or expansion you sought. Or, it's also possible to mishandle pieces of this along the way and blow it of your own accord. Let's say you overhire, substantially increase your burn rate without justification, or hire the wrong person/people.

Also, if all you do is poll people or ask them questions in interviews I think there's a risk that you:

a) talked to the wrong people/audience
b) talked to the wrong market segment or slice
c) could've experienced other factors (language barriers, cultural differences, a misunderstanding about what you're wanting to bring to market)

The problem is that there are a lot of people with opinions and they could be right or they could be wrong.

hhhhhmmmmmmmmmm.

agree. i like the way he talks about this.

I initially wanted to disagree, but really, he makes some good points, validating an IDEA is not impossible, so I do disagree, but it is very hard--practically impossible. But all that aside, the thing I'd focus on he does mention, what does it mean to be "validated" you're a multibillion dollar enterprise? You're a small happy and healthy organization with a strong product? A product that gives you good Work/Life balance? That is for you to decide really, but that is the big question.

Based on this video its seems he's saying without presenting something to an audience you don't really know for sure if it's validated or not.

I am thinking of user research prior to an MVP. You may ask, is this solution something you would use and pay for? If you get yes across the board, you then proceed with an MVP. But upon launch, all those people who said yes suddenly have no interest. So all that 'validation" wasn't really genuine. Once the product is built 'the market will dictate validation' when users sign up or are paying customers.

I think that is what Jason meant here.

I couldn't disagree more. Maybe on the most basic level in that you can't guarantee something by asking around but you can certainly pitch an idea to your potential market and validate that there is a market need for it. Even more so you can definitely invalidate and idea by asking around. I especially detest his rant about if you can't invalidate ideas by yourself then you are already lost. How are you supposed to have knowledge of every single market and need out there. I recently came up with a product I thought was really cool, in tests I was able to show that it could increase conversion rates by a huge percent in a simple and automated way, everything about it seemed like a gold mine. I pitched it to the people who would be using it, marketers, and they told me there is no need for it because of the way they do their work there is no fit for mine. Had I not asked I would have spent months more working on a dead end project.

He’s not saying don’t do research. He’s saying you can’t know if something will work until people are using the real thing. As long as something is hypothetical, there are unknowns.

If "validate" means "certainty" then he's absolutely right. But the question I want to know is: should we stop or continue to validate ideas as usual?

Here's the thing... and Jason is sort of right... validation is often treated like an endpoint i.e. you have an idea or product or you find an audience with a problem; you ask people if they would buy it, and if they say yes, that is somehow considered validation to proceed.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. I followed this path and now I'm paying for it.

• I launched TapeReal to help people easily record/share conversations through mobile
• I gathered feedback, iterated the product, and asked people if they would pay for it
• Many folks said yes and 80% of active users started paying for it...

At this point I was like, WOW... I have a validated business! Now I only needed to acquire more users/customers and begin the cycle of growing revenue.

Unfortunately, things didn't pan out that way...

I ended up parting ways with my tech co-founder and couldn't release new app updates for a few months.

On top of that, we had lockdowns/the pandemic, markets & economies were shifting/suffering, users started to develop buyer remorse, product quality started to suffer, and I made mistakes in retaining our paid users...

Does that mean my business is no longer validated???

No, it just means that I had to learn, be resilient, and continue to test and iterate.

Instead of looking at validation has a finite goal or endpoint, we need to adopt (as Simon Sinek would say) "an infinite mindset". I think validation as an ongoing process, and you can experience validation in various forms throughout your journey.

It's an evolution, not an outcome.

I've been a JF/Basecamp/37Signals fan for forever. I don't agree with this one though.

I support the point that you can't KNOW 100% what someone will pay for or use without seeing if they actually will. Of course! You can't predict the future. That's obvious.

But should you commit to building a large, time-consuming, expensive thing without having any sense of whether your effort will go completely to waste and no one will use it or pay for it? Hell no.

I would like to see if he articulates it differently when he writes a blog post about it. Either way he's still a legend, I don't have to agree with him on everything to still respect him.

I second what JF and Rosie say. In my opinion, even if someone/or a group validates an idea it's of no use. Because validating an idea is extremely primitive, can be good conversation starters, nothing more.

And yeah, I assumed that validate means guarantee eventual success as @charlierward mentioned in his reply.

HE can't validate idea.
This twit shit is just his projection onto you.