Startup idea validator
Eight questions that separate evidence from enthusiasm.
Free, no signup, and it runs entirely in your browser.
- Has anyone paid you for this, or agreed to?The only question here that is nearly conclusive on its own.
- Is anyone using it weekly without being reminded?Unprompted repeat use is the strongest signal short of payment.
- Can you name a specific person who has this problem?A named person, not a segment. "Marketers" is not an answer.
- Are they solving it today, badly?A spreadsheet doing the job is proof of demand. No workaround often means no problem.
- Can you reach a hundred of them without paying for ads?A community, a newsletter, a job. Distribution kills more products than the product does.
- Does the problem recur at least monthly?Once-a-year problems are real and very hard to build a business on.
- Do they already spend money in this area?An existing budget line is easier to redirect than a new one is to create.
- Have you talked to ten of them in the last month?Not a survey. Conversations, where they can say something you did not anticipate.
Answer the questions to see where the evidence actually is.
Questions about what someone has already done are weighted above questions about what you believe, because the first kind predicts and the second kind does not.
About this tool
Idea validation frameworks usually ask about market size and competition, which are the questions you can answer from a desk and which predict almost nothing. These eight ask what has already happened — who paid, who came back, who you actually spoke to — because that is the only category of answer with any predictive value.
- The questions are weighted. "Has anyone paid you" is worth three times "does the problem recur monthly", because it is nearly conclusive on its own.
- A low score is not a verdict on the idea. It is a description of how much you currently know, and early on the honest answer is usually "not much".
- The heavy questions you answered no to are your next two weeks. That is the whole use of the score.
- Nothing is recorded. Answers stay in the page and vanish when you close it.
Questions
- How do I validate a startup idea?
- By finding evidence rather than opinions: someone who paid, someone who uses it unprompted, someone already solving the problem badly with a spreadsheet. Ten conversations beat three months of building.
- What score means I should build it?
- No score means that. Above 75% you have evidence and the remaining risk is execution; below 25% you have a hypothesis, which is a normal place to start and a bad place to spend six months.
- Why is market size not a question here?
- Because it is answerable from a desk and predicts almost nothing for a small product. Whether ten named people want this predicts far more than whether the category is worth billions.