Validation has a bad reputation because people use it to confirm ideas they’ve already fallen for. Its real value is in killing ideas cheaply. Every idea you drop after a handful of conversations is weeks of building you didn’t waste.
These five questions are built for that. They’re ordered roughly the way you’d ask them, and each has a kill signal: an answer that should make you seriously reconsider.
Before you ask anything
Two ground rules. First, don’t describe your idea until the end of the conversation, if at all. The moment you describe it, people start being nice to you. Second, ask about the past, not the future. “Would you use…” invites a guess. “Tell me about the last time…” gets a story, and stories contain facts.
If that sounds like running a good discovery call, it is. Treat each conversation like a first meeting with a prospect you genuinely don’t know will buy.
The five questions
- “Walk me through the last time this happened.” You want a specific instance: when, what steps, who was involved. Kill signal: they can’t remember a recent example, or the story stays vague. A problem people can’t recall isn’t one they’ll pay to fix.
- “What do you do about it today?” Every real problem has a current solution, even if it’s a spreadsheet, an intern, or just living with it. Kill signal: “Nothing, really.” If they’ve never tried anything, the pain is probably too small to change a habit.
- “What does that cost you?” Time, money, missed deals, late nights, an annoyed boss. Push for an estimate in their own units. Kill signal: a shrug, or a cost of a few minutes a month.
- “Who else is involved, and who would decide to change how this works?” This is just qualifying. You’re finding the buyer, who may not be the person with the pain. Kill signal: the person who feels the pain has no say, and the person who decides doesn’t care.
- “Have you looked for something to fix this? What happened?” If they searched, tried a tool, and gave up, that’s gold. Ask exactly why it didn’t stick. Kill signal: they looked, found a few decent tools, and one of them works fine.
Reading the answers honestly
You’ll rarely get five clean kill signals or five clean green lights. Most ideas land somewhere in the middle. A few rules of thumb help:
- One strong kill signal across most conversations usually outweighs several weak positives. If nearly everyone says the cost is small, believe them.
- Weigh what people have done over what they say they’ll do. A spreadsheet someone built and maintains is stronger evidence than enthusiasm.
- Be wary of “that’s a great idea” with no follow-up questions. Real interest sounds like questions back to you: when, how much, can it handle our weird case.
- If answers vary wildly by role or company size, your customer definition is too broad. Narrow it and run a few more.
Write up each conversation within an hour, while you still remember the exact phrases. The words people use to describe their pain will end up in your landing page copy later, so capture them word for word.
How many conversations is enough
There’s no magic number. You’re listening for repetition. When the last two or three conversations told you nothing new, you’ve learned what this round can teach you. For a narrow problem with a clear customer, that can happen within five or six calls. For a fuzzy one, it may never happen, which is itself an answer.
When an idea survives
An idea that survives these questions isn’t proven. It has earned the right to a small, focused first version. That’s where a written plan comes in: a product requirements document scoped to the one workflow people actually described to you, in their words.
If you want help finding those first conversations and turning your notes into a decision, BLDR Lite covers validation as part of its free track.