Validate Before You Build: The MVP Lessons That Cost Me 3 Months

This is part of my work with 01MVP on OpenNomos.

The $0 Launch

27 visits. 0 signups. 3 months of work. I built a product with auth, payments, dark mode — every feature I thought users wanted. I never asked a single user what they actually needed.

Why Building Is Easy and Validation Is Hard

In 2026, Cursor writes your code, v0 generates your UI, Replit deploys it. The barrier to shipping collapsed. But AI multiplies your ability to build, not your ability to discern what is worth building. The bottleneck shifted from execution to validation.

The Validation Playbook

1. Talk to 10 people first — actual conversations, not surveys
2. Build a mockup, not a product
3. Charge from day one — paying users tell the truth
4. Kill fast — most ideas fail, fail the bad ones in days

01MVP structures this process on OpenNomos.

Comments

[orville wang]

good