I spent 6 months building a SaaS. I launched on Product Hunt. I got 12 upvotes.
The product was solid. Authentication, payments, responsive UI, dark mode — everything you are supposed to have. The problem: I never asked a single person if they wanted what I was building.
The Numbers That Matter
- 6 months of development
- 12 Product Hunt upvotes
- 0 paying customers
- 0 user interviews before launch
The only number that matters is the last one. Everything else followed from it.
What Actually Works
After that failure, I changed my approach:
- Talk to 10 people before writing a line of code. Not surveys. Not Twitter polls. Actual conversations.
- Find 3 people who say they would pay — and get them to commit with a pre-order or credit card.
- Build the smallest thing that solves their specific problem. Not the full vision. Just the one thing they need.
- Launch to those 3 people first. If they use it and pay, expand. If not, iterate or kill.
The Validation Stack I Use Now
I document this entire process through 01MVP on OpenNomos, where contributors earn points for real usage. The key insight: validation is not a step in your process — validation IS the process.
Product Hunt launches, Twitter threads, landing pages — none of it matters if you never confirmed demand first. Build less. Ask more. Start here: https://www.opennomos.com/en/project/01KW9BSG541GDRPXCP8JJV277Z
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