The most expensive mistake a startup can make is building a polished product nobody wants. Before you commit to an MVP, a focused month of validation can tell you whether the problem is real, who has it most and whether they will pay to solve it.
To keep it concrete, imagine you are exploring a marketplace that connects local restaurants with independent delivery riders.
Week 1: Define your riskiest assumptions
Write down what must be true for the business to work. For our example:
- Restaurants are unhappy with their current delivery options.
- Independent riders want more flexible, local work.
- Restaurants will pay a fee that covers riders and leaves a margin.
Rank them by risk. The one that would kill the idea if false is the one to test first.
Week 2: Talk to people
Interview 15–20 potential customers. Ask about their current behaviour and recent experiences, not about your idea. “Tell me about the last time a delivery went wrong” teaches you far more than “Would you use an app that…?”
Listen for workarounds, spending and emotion. People who have already built a spreadsheet or paid for a partial solution have a real problem.
Week 3: Test demand
- Publish a simple landing page that describes the offer and asks visitors to join a waiting list or book a call.
- Send a small amount of targeted traffic to it through search ads or relevant communities.
- Offer a manual version of the service to a handful of customers. Doing by hand what the app will later automate is the fastest way to learn.
Week 4: Test willingness to pay
Ask for a commitment: a pre-order, a paid pilot or a signed letter of intent. Interest is cheap; money and time are real signals.
Validation is not about proving you are right. It is about finding out quickly and cheaply if you are wrong.
What to do with the results
- Strong signals: scope an MVP around the specific problem and customer segment that responded best.
- Mixed signals: narrow the audience or adjust the offer, then run another short test.
- Weak signals: be glad you found out in a month, not a year, and move on.
The insight from these 30 days becomes the brief for your MVP: who it is for, the one job it must do, and how you will know it is working.
