Validate your product: 19 market testing and market validation tactics (plus 7 tools for
validating)
Validating a product properly can be make or break. It's a big topic, so I didn't get into it in my post on generating startup ideas. But people seemed interested in that part of the process, so I did some digging.
Here's a list of validation techniques, starting with the easiest (which also tend to be low-confidence) and moving to the hardest (high-confidence). Hope it helps!
Define validate
Validation is the process of determining whether there is a need for your product in the market, as well as whether people are willing to pay to have that need met.
It requires a deep dive into the problem, the market, and the solution (product). And it's how we founders step outside of our founder blindness and rely on cold, hard data to show us whether or not a product has legs.
In this context, the truest form of validation tends to be the exchange of money.
Ways to validate: Market research
The first step is to do some research. This, in itself, probably won't serve as sufficient validation, but it's your first line of defense against unsustainable ideas.
Start by writing down your goals, assumptions, and hypotheses. What will you be testing? What will you consider as validation? Then get into your research.
- Conduct a competitive analysis: Do you have any competition? If so, that's generally considered a good thing (within reason). Identify your competitors and look into how they're doing. If they're thriving, that could be a measure of validation right there. To really understand your competitors, you can take it a step further with a SWOT analysis.
- Check out marketplaces: In the same vein as competitive analysis, check out marketplaces where products like yours are sold. The number of similar products, as well as their ratings and comments, can give you a new level of insight into the market and what your target customers are looking for.
- Check out review sites: Yet another form of competitive analysis. Look up reviews of your competitors on sites like G2 and Capterra. You can learn a lot about the struggles of your potential customers this way, and you'll learn whether your idea fills a hole that other products aren't filling.
- Discover search interest: Tools like Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMRush can help you to understand what (and if) people are searching in your niche. More to the point, you can find out whether your solution is being sought out and if it's on the rise, or if a pivot could bring you more in line with the search traffic.
- Online (and offline) communities: @amyhoy calls it a "Sales Safari." Essentially you want to go where your target customers hang out and watch them interact. You'll often hear about pain points, purchasing decisions, and all sorts of things you might otherwise be clueless about.
- Quora: Check out questions people have asked in relation to your idea. What are they trying to solve? What are the most upvoted answers? Again, this can provide invaluable insight into your market and how relevant your product will be.
It's worth noting that having founder-market fit is a huge leg up when it comes to market research, as you'll already have a good feel for the market.
Ways to validate: Market testing (and human interaction)
If everything looks promising with your research, start talking to other humans.
Note: Before doing this, I'd recommend giving The Mom Test by @robfitz a read — more on that in a moment.
- Share with colleagues: After all, they know the industry and may be able to provide solid insight. You can share with other people you know too, of course. But the closer they are to you, the more skeptical you should be about their positive answers.
- Starbucks test: Ask a random person at Starbucks (or elsewhere) to review your concept or product. Don't tell them it's yours. Offer to buy them a coffee in return.
- Online (and offline) communities: Indie Hackers, reddit, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, you name it. Speak to your target market where they hang out (observing the rules of the group, of course). Ask for feedback. I see that some people have reported that an "Ask HN" post helped on Hacker News.
- Meetups: Go to meetups that your target customers would go to and get to know them. Show them the idea and get their feedback.
- Conduct surveys with your email list: If you've got an email list, send a survey out to whatever segments closely resemble your target customers. Ask them questions that will test your assumptions and hypotheses. Your questions will vary according to how far along you are in the process, but be specific and try not to lead the respondents. It may not seem like it, but it's a good thing if their responses crush your idea.
- Conduct polls with your following: You can do this on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., and it can give you very valuable data. Keep in mind, though, that respondents on social media may not be part of your target market.
- Wherever you see an opportunity, reach out: @cara says she tested ideas by reaching out to people who complained about competitors' products on Twitter. All it took was a message with a few quick questions, and maybe a followup with a longer question if they responded.
- Conduct formal interviews: This is one of the main pieces of advice I've found in my research, and it's connected to each of the other points in this section. Whether it's existing customers, an email list, or random people, sitting down with target customers can be a big advantage. Remember: Don't pitch. Talk about their life (not the idea). Talk about the past (not the future). Gather facts and commitments, not compliments. Be specific. And have 20 conversations with 1 type of customer, not 1 conversation with 20 types of customers. Those tips are from The Mom Test. And here are a few pointers based on the book.
Ways to validate: Getting commitments
This is where the rubber really meets the road. It will give you the most accurate information by far, but it does take a little more work, which is why I'm saving it for last. The only way to truly know whether your idea is viable is to let the market decide — with money.
- Waitlist: If people are willing to sign up for your waitlist, they may be willing to purchase your product in the end. Especially if you're using the wait to build anticipation. Create a landing page with email capture, then get the word out. The more you have to show for the concept, the better, but people have done this with as little as a description. Putting some money into Google Ads can be a good way to get some traffic and test your hypotheses.
- Presales: Sweet, sweet presales. Getting a presale is true validation because they are giving you money, which could be an indication that others will as well. Same drill as the waitlist — put together a landing page, this time with purchase functionality, and then promote it like crazy. It can be helpful to have a clickable prototype at this stage. Tools likes Marvel can help with that. Luckily, it doesn't need to be an MVP. @semy managed to get five presales (and 400 signups) with a video that just showed basic wireframes.
- Crowdfunding: Technically, this is a type of presales but it's worth mentioning on its own. There lots of options for this, like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
- Launch sites: "Launching" on sites like Product Hunt and BetaList can be a big help in finding late-stage validation. And it can work for early-stage validation too — @Grendorf managed to get a few hundred signups within a week from Product Hunt with only a landing page.
- Sales: True validation means making sales in the marketplace, at a level that can sustain your business. Of course, you'll need at least an MVP at this stage.
And the process continues even after the payments start rolling in. Keep gathering feedback, optimizing, and validating new features.
Some market validation tools
And in case you're interested, here a few validation tools that I found along the way.
- ProductValidator: A free service where you enter a few keywords about your idea and it spits out information about how the market is responding to ideas like yours.
- Startup Builder: Guided templates and resources to help you validate quickly.
- Customer Discovery: Connects you with early adopters so that you can interview them and learn.
- AreYouInterested: A free platform that helps you think up, validate, and discuss business ideas.
- UserTesting: Instead of interviewing users, this tool records user reactions to your product.
- PingPong: A tool that schedules calls with people who will check out your product.
- Javelin: A suite of products designed to help founders create a landing page, run Google Ads to it, and pull relevant data from it to validate your product.
Results aren't validating your product?
No problem. Pivot. Then pivot again until you find market validation
Good luck! 💪
This is an excellent breakdown of validation techniques! I especially appreciate the emphasis on progressing from research to monetary commitments—such a practical way to de-risk ideas. Thanks for sharing these actionable steps!
This is something I will definitely refer back to in the future especially when vetting a new startup idea. It's helpful to keep reminding myself not to put the cart before the horse. Any way I can limit solutions in search of problems is helpful to me!
Great ...
What a great article!
I have a tool if you want to add it to the list? Released it today!
It’s an interactive guide to defining and validating a market. It’s a unique framework influenced by the JTBD method.
https://thepoethings.gumroad.com/l/mvtoolkit
This came out of the main service I offer with deep-dive feedback videos: https://the-poe-things.com
Sounds like a cool tool! 💪
This comprehensive guide on market validation tactics is a goldmine! It effectively outlines various strategies, from market research and competitive analysis to engaging with communities and conducting surveys. The emphasis on real-world interaction, such as the Starbucks test and formal interviews, is particularly insightful. The list of tools like ProductValidator and UserTesting adds immense value, making it easier for founders to validate their ideas. Overall, this structured approach to validation, highlighting the importance of genuine market feedback and commitments, provides a clear roadmap for entrepreneurs looking to ensure their product's success. Great job!
I'm glad you found the article helpful! It's great that you're looking to improve your product based on customer feedback. Analyzing reviews is a smart way to identify pain points and areas for improvement.
What a great article!
We have a tool if you want to add it to the list?
It cultivates the tree of wisdom, sown from the seeds of your concepts in the way of Mind Map
Please contact me if you have any interest.
These are great tips. Definitely found the early and late stage validation methods helpful.
And yes, money is the biggest validator. If a product gets a person excited enough to reach for their wallet, you are going in the right direction.
But the problem is that you need to have a good product that you can show its potential to be better and greater than what's already out there. Unfortunately, people nowadays want to be more hands-on rather than investing in ideas (unless they are VCs).
we are at a very early stage with timegram.io. The good thing is that we have competition with 100s and 1000s of customers already so we know that the demand is there. The bad news is that the product needs to be at least at a point where we are somewhat comparable to them and introduce a few differentiators to make us stand out. The worse news is that being an Indie hacker, there is very little room for innovation with the money we have unless we get big bucks.
I am starting to talk to people (target audience) to find that "differentiating" aspects to add to our product. I hope this is a good approach. Wish me luck!
this is a great article, James! So much valuable information inside.
btw; if you are interested in the back story of how I got 400 signups and few sales with a product that didn't exist. Here is my story
Awesome, thanks Samuel!
Thank you so much for this!!!
My pleasure, glad I could help! 🙏
I have an idea in mind related to this, I am thinking to build a website where people can list the different problems they have in their industry or life so apps/platforms builders can use it as a source of problems to be solved. The people can vote if they also are experiencing the same problem and this will help the builders to somehow validate that indeed there is a problem.
What do you think about this? Many builders first find the solution and then they try to look for a problem that fits. I already have in mind many features for the tool.
You that are builders, think this would be useful to find problems to be solved?
I think it's a cool idea. No idea if anything like that exists, or if there's demand. But I'd probably take a look at it from time to time.
Just remember that you'd probably have a chicken/egg issue where no one uses it until there's content and no one adds content until people are using it.
I'd probably start by using an existing forum like a subreddit/twitter/etc., then start aggregating them into a product that you can sell access to. Just a thought.
yeah, I have trying to find something similar but I haven't. Also I have asked some indie hackers if they know anything similar but they don't.
Thanks for your comment.
Is there anyone have meeting heduling site or software?? for business meeting shedule or marketing teams controle?
most of these tools are actually no longer available :( can anyone recommend some alternatives?
Great article. Here's my personal recommendation for more user research and product validation, all delivered through chatting with amazing builders: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aO82EdfJSqBBmH8zsdxBs?si=0d1aae1e23144b6a
A great article, I would also suggest people the toolkit I found online, this IMO helps validate ideas pretty drastically, and it's free - https://unicamel.io/checklist-kit/
Hi @james Many of the tools seem to be inactive.
The mom test can be very useful, but it really depends on your potential customers.
Would a regular mom understand what zapier (just an example) is for?
The more technical your customers are, the less relevant the mom test is.
After reading your comment, I've been trying [in my head] to figure out how to explain Zapier to a soccer mom. So far, it's not going well.
Great article! Covers all the good resources for idea validation.
I would like to share my tool as well.
Curio Revelio offers an idea validation tool start validating business ideas in less than 48 hours!
We are committed to making the process of starting up more efficient and accessible.
Check out the Idea Validation Tool here: curiorevelio.com/idea-validation
Great guide!
+1 to using online communities to tap into conversations where people are discussing their problems. I've been working on a tool to make this quick & easy for Reddit. If anyone here would find use out of analyzing conversations from online communities on Reddit, check out GummySearch
Beautiful article mate, really helped clear things up. And I can't believe I never thought of looking at review sites to see what are the pain points for people.
Oops, wrong account :) Thanks, @netram! Yeah, review sites can be really helpful 👍
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
this is gold.
btw, in the market validation tools section, the first three links are broken.
Hi @IndieJames,
FYI the following market validation tools no longer exist, the links provided are dead :
Also, you might be interested in this tool "Checkmyidea" for your article: https://www.checkmyidea-ia.com/
The tool helps indie maker to evaluate their side business idea.
Great work anyway
useful information. Thanks for this.
Nice information. must follow.
This is perhaps the most actionable post I've seen on IH, hats off to you my man
Great article!
Also, I wanna share 4 weeks plan, which we using when validating our clients ideas:
Bootcamp - Week 1
During the first week of UniCamel. We work closely together to restructure the business, and dive deep into the problem we are solving, competition, and the value proposition. Not to mention the target audience, channels and strategy we are going to use. Then we use project management tools to assign and prioritize tasks to build the MVP and get ready to start the fun part.
A / B - Week 2
This is the most important week of your business. We will launch the MVP and try different target audiences with the most attractive techniques used by high scalable startups. We keep an eye on different tools that track the user journey, behavior, and numbers to adapt our solution accordingly and that’s why we call this week A/B.
Hunt - Week 3
This week we launch our best campaigns based on the numbers and market responses that we will adapt to so quickly. We call it “Hunt” as we will be focusing on getting the first paying customer and closing our first deal while we focus on the unit economics of the business. We will build together the most effective sales funnel and financial model with accurate numbers that allow the business to grow.
Personal Development - Week 4
In the last week of the program we focus on making sure the founder fully understands the whole process and confident enough to take it forward on his own. We monitor the performance while we assign different tasks to make sure that you are ready to go. We focus on handing over the whole startup data, website ownership, and 3 month growth plan.
If anybody want to dive deep and get more detail information with all tools, which we use and strategies, just drop me a line or you can read more information here - https://unicamel.io/valide-startup-idea/!
Amazing article!
These are amazing tips! Thanks for sharing!
👍
This article explain how to not insisting on failure. Probably I will read weekly :)
Hah, nice! Glad to hear it 😀
Late to the party, but thanks so much for compiling these resources!
Happy to help 😀
Thanks. Really nice. Do you have a spreadsheet/tool to aggregate all the infos/data from the different strategies in one place to make it easy to take decisions?
No, but that'd be a good idea 😃
This article is exactly what I needed.
Thanks a lot.
Sure thing! Good luck 🚀
this tool is mine, i wish i could explain it's value better, it is for startup founders to better do customer development so they can build an impactful product that customers actually want https://www.prepxus.com
Looks cool, thanks for sharing! 💪
Thank you!! Had already done initial product validation for our upcoming Notion dashboard but this is taking it to another level.
Glad it'll help. Good luck validating!
This is gold. Thank you for sharing!
I personally like the Validation Guide from Board of Innovation: https://www.boardofinnovation.com/guides/validation-guide/
They list 24 ways/tools to validate, including the pre-sale and others you mentioned!
Nice, thanks for weighing in 💪
Really excellent article -- thank you. FYI, Kernal is another resource to validate ideas https://kern.al/
Awesome thanks! 🙌
Super helpful list, thanks for rounding this up!
Glad to help!
Thank you for sharing! Your interactive guide sounds innovative and valuable for entrepreneurs. Incorporating JTBD methodology adds depth to market analysis. I'd love to include it in the article for readers to explore.
Thankkk youuu!
I really learned a lot from this post. Also learned about some new tools that work great.
Great Job on this post!
Great stuff. Thanks James!
Hey, Community I would like to share product hunt launch of - Echo ( https://www.producthunt.com/posts/echo-78ebfee0-82df-4cac-be61-c6c020f27972 )
I believe you all understand the value of innovation and efficient communication.
Echo is a powerful browser extension that lets you leave voice comments directly into platforms like Google Docs,Slides,Sheets Notion, and Figma & more.
Imagine giving feedback, explaining complex ideas, or collaborating on projects & designs using the simplicity and nuance of your voice.
As an early adopter, your insights and feedback will be invaluable in shaping this tool to better suit your needs.
PH - https://www.producthunt.com/posts/echo-78ebfee0-82df-4cac-be61-c6c020f27972
Best, Amogh Tiwari
Hey James,
This is post is pure gold. I'm just getting started and I really needed something like this. Thank you so much.
So much valuable information.
Just to add something -- don't assume validation is complete once you start generating revenue. Markets and needs are always evolving. Continued customer engagement and adaptation is important for long-term success.
This is one of the best posts ever. I started building a product for fun, but it already exists on the market. I had two concerns:
A lot of competitors
I read Zero to One, which discusses how competition is terrible. Now, I have another perspective. Competition can be good if you want. You need to use it as research material.
What is my advantage over them?
I got your tip. I went to the G2 website and read every review the main competitor has received. It gave me unique insights into what I am doing right and what I am doing wrong. It made me discover essential features I was leaving behind and showed me the users' struggles.
My new strategy
I'll focus on the wrong parts of the competitors and make it so good that people will accept the tradeoff. The other features may not be as good as the competition, but it's enough so they can take the tradeoff.
Really helpful list - especially the tools! Definitely trying some of them out. Thanks, @IndieJames!
Has anyone had any success with looking at review sites? I only ever find cons like "The learning curve is steep, but after reading the docs I love it now." or "They had some bugs, but fixed all of them".
This is a super helpful list thank you for sharing. Any specific strategy around survey's themselves? You listed them, but am curious to know if there is any nuance in crafting market testing surveys.
Fantastic list—thanks for sharing! Love a lot of these products and we've used a lot during our own validation processes.
Shameless plug for Uprise, our market testing and validation subscription service. We've helped dozens of great startups test and validate their products before going to market.
Do I understand it correctly that if nobody signs up to the waitlist there is no sense to launch presales? That sounds quite logical, however, can there be counter-examples, e.g. when you need to run MVP even if there are no sing-ups to the waitlist?
This is great thanks for sharing, i would add though that one of the most powerful ways ive validated ideas in the past, is by actively trying to invalidate the idea. 10x speed!
Thanks for sharing, very helpfull
What a useful strategy, and we are grateful to you for letting us in on it.
thanks for your high quality sharing！
Thanks for sharing such a valuable technique.
Thanks for sharing all the techniques and resources.
Thank you for sharing these validation techniques in a clear and organized manner. I appreciate your insights on this topic!
Btw, I'm also creating a product and want to receive validation from you guys. It's an AI bookmarking/ quick capture solution called Caroot Bot. Currently, my team and I decided to create a Telegram Bot that can save everything you want, from PDF file to photos to audios and then analyze it to better organizing and retrieving for later use. The best thing is that when you need to look back for it, you can just simply type your remembered keywords like chatting with your friend as the bot applied semantic search technique. You can also generate key notes with Zettelkasten method.
How do you think about our product? Please try and give me your feedback.
Bot link: https://bit.ly/3pysGFE
https://www.aventionmedia.com/
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Reddit and other online communities have been a major help as you mentioned. Really helps with seeing the market from an outside perspective since we tend to have deep industry knowledge of whatever we're creating.
Awesome write up. I'm a UX researcher and this is a good synopsis of what we try to do when validating new products! Love it.
On your list of tools, UserTesting is super expensive. Which means it's unavailable for most indiehackers. But if you're interested in collecting video responses from users and customers, I've recently built and released Re-View: https://re-view.ai/video-survey/
Re-View is not the most feature rich tool, but it is the simplest way to get video responses. We have a 'free forever' plan, or you can upgrade if you want more responses each month b/c we know even indie hackers need research tools!
Once again, thanks for the detailed post. Great work.
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Great advice on the market research and testing section!
I just created a simple and free validating tool called: TestandStart.com
Uses AI to provide an "idea score", recommended Tech Stack, and Product Market Fit ideas!
Check it out and let me know what you think!
testandstart.com
Surveys: Surveys are a popular and effective way to collect feedback from potential customers. You can use tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to create and distribute surveys to your target audience. Surveys can help you understand customer needs, preferences, and pain points, which can inform your product development.
User testing: User testing involves observing how people interact with your product to identify usability issues and areas for improvement. You can use tools like UserTesting or Maze to conduct remote user testing sessions. User testing can help you identify and address issues before launching your product, which can lead to better customer satisfaction and retention
I love some of these tools but looks like a bunch of them no longer exist :( We're building https://app.contrarian.ai a search bar for your customers' pain points. We analysed billions of social media comments to help you pinpoint the issues your customers care about the most. I'm hoping that this will speed up the time from idea to execution.
Very helpful!
Nice article!
Some students and I are currently investigating on how to effectively increase and maintain physical and mental well-being along with productivity and performance while working.
It would be greatly appreciated if you could take the time to participate in our survey since it would help us alot.
The survey is anonymous and takes about 2 minutes to complete: https://forms.gle/f2HMM56GGQ32Jf6aA
This is great advice! However I would like to ask, how would you validate it in terms of getting people to buy your product and make it more convincing?
Great list!
Agreed with all the suggestions. Don't waste money on non important things.
Thanks for this!
Thanks for the post, very helpful!
As the commenter below me mentioned, a few of those links are broken / haven't configured SSL correctly.
But the content of this article is on point - I even built a tool especially for creating waitlist-like landing pages where you can measure interest and ask questions to each signup to judge if you should build the idea or not. If anyone is interested, it does hosting, SSL, email capture and sending for you: https://validate.run
Apart from that, I'm just hearing about the starbucks test and it sounds kind of funny. Probably only works for mainstream consumer products, so for most indiehackers this is not going to help much (since they want to pick a niche audience).
www.validatorai.com
We made this simple tool to validate ideas. maybe it'll help some people here!
Thanks for this blog post. It is very interesting and the market validation step is often forgotten or skipped. It is great to build a product but it should be better if this product is used by actual customers ;)
There are 3 of your tools links that are broken currently. In case those are ones of your products.
What a great piece of structured content, worth it.
I personally try to answer a few questions myself when assessing an Idea:
Great view! Can not learn more!
Great article, thank a lot!
Very helpful, thanks a lot!
Enjoyed reading this and quite a lot of resources inside this article to further read, explore and try out. Thanks.
This is super helpful!
Goldmine. Thanks!
Thoughts on using paid ads to test a landing page for ideas?
sorry for offtopic - im quite new to indiehackers - i'm little confused that i cannot add any post in any forum - what are the rules here - should i just wait for me account being accepted or sth like that? :)
I'm looking right now into some of these hacks I was not aware of. Along with our Beta, these are super valuable tips! Thx a lot!
Thanks for sharing, some tools definitely worth looking for
Everytime I start something, I always fail at this point - getting those early adopters. This time I'm building something in developer tooling.
Being a developer myself, I hope I'd connect better to my target audience.
Thanks for the amazing post!
Great tools and suggestions for new builders. Thanks for sharing them!
Great article!
Awesome article Jamies, thanks for sharing!
I made an audio version of the post for anyone who prefers to listen :
https://play.ad-auris.com/demo/ad-auris/validate-your-product--19-market-testing-and-market-validation-tactics--plus-7-tools-for-validating-
I have an idea for an application but I need someone who can help me build that app what would I do can someone suggest me
This was great thank you!
Awesome article.
I've converted it to a podcast/audio article for anyone wants to listen on their way home.
https://sendtopod.com/podcast/2c57a03b-306c-4ffa-a0b1-4158248e2f79
Would love to hear your thought on my idea too 😉.
great article!
One of the best methods I normally use for my research is to check customers' feedback on competitors' products/Services on Twitter, Facebook, and Google maps.
try this toolkit - https://unicamel.io/checklist-kit/
I really like the idea of looking on twitter for complaints of existing solutions, good idea
Amazing article 🔥
I've validated my idea with build in public, waitlist and pre orders. And it was success
Awesome article, thanks for sharing
Wow. I've recently been looking for a way to validate my idea and landed on this post. Thank you for the amazing insight! I`ll definitely take some ideas and step into action.
god job 💪
Thanks a lot for this post. This is very exhaustive list and should really help people who are just starting...
thanks for the exhaustive list !
This is cool thanks for sharing!
Great article, thank you for sharing!
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Needed this right now! Grateful for being part of this.
Nice share! My personal favorite is definitely the Mom's test and presales.
From my many years of experience, one of the most common challenges for customer interviews or mom's test phase (especially for first-time founders):
TIPS for Introverts and first-time founders who have trouble with going out there and speaking with customers:
1- Warm up with your mom, friends, and family. But try not to use these warm-ups as your validation unless they are your ideal customers.
2- Can use chat messengers as alternatives. Just make sure you chat as if it's you are having a real conversation.
3- If you are still not comfortable with the first 2... a 'well structured and unbias' survey is what I usually do.
Again, a nice refresher to read on validation! Thanks!
Really nice article! Loved that you namechecked "the mom test" - that's such a great mindset to take.
To help validate ideas, I knocked together this site for my own use: https://www.teststacks.com - it's a smörgåsbord of 40+ validation experiments. :)
how to treat anxiety and depression at the same time?
Fascinated resources. Do you do validation service / consulting full time? @IndieJames
Thanks, Felix! Yep, I do consult, and I've got a few projects on the side 👍 None of it is specifically to do with validation, though.
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