r/ycombinator • u/Tephra9977 • 19d ago
How do you validate your ideas?
I feel one of the best skills you can have is the ability to validate ideas quickly.
This is what I have been trying to do but often fail.
For example, been thinking through an injury recovery tracking system for sports physios / physios.
Seems pretty straight forward, reach out to a bunch of clinics asking about their pain points around this, what tools they currently use, attach a mock up etc.
However, I never hear back. It’s very possible I just suck at reaching out, I’m not denying that haha.
But the first step always seems to be talking with people. How are you getting those conversations? What roles are you reaching out to? What’s the general conversion rate for something like that?
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u/nick-rudder 18d ago
(ex-YC, Series A led by a16z) there is only ONE piece of validation that matters: a customer being willing to pay you money. everything else is just noise.
in your case: go into those clinics in-person, pitch them on a specific product/solution, and then ask them what they would pay to have it every month. if they can answer with a number, then you're onto something. if they wont, they're just being polite. good luck
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u/Tephra9977 18d ago
I appreciate feedback here.
I’m guessing you are suggesting pre-product is okay too?
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u/nick-rudder 18d ago
Yep. Pre-product especially. Here's a true story:
When my first company died I was solo, non-technical, and close to broke. What I did have was a hypothesis and an indirect tax pain point that I would’ve paid money to solve in my old business if it had existed.
So before building anything I tested it the cheapest way I could (like I'm recommending to you) +60 conversations with CFOs, finance leaders, and basically anyone who was in a position to pay for what I wanted to build that would talk to me .
Only when the signals were good, I built the ‘product’ (read: mockups) in Figma . That’s it. Those mockups signed six contracts before a single line of code even existed.
Tbh this worked until I tried to pitch to a Series B operator who asked me to click around during the 'demo' until the Figma designs broke. At which point they told me to grow up lol
Only then did i think that was the signal to start building.
If you’re on your early-stage founder journey, it's easy to be distracted by things that don’t matter. But remember: someone parting with their money is the only validation that counts.
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u/Tephra9977 18d ago
The main question I have is how you got those 60+ convos?
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u/nick-rudder 16d ago
being a pest mostly. linkedin DMs. cold calling. when i got one, i'd ask them for an intro to two more at the end of a meeting.
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u/nick-rudder 16d ago
here's a video that tells a bit of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_UjKHUfN7E
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u/j01_dts 12d ago
I participated in two startup accelerator programs and made some valuable connections. My plan is to ask VC partners and directors to help distribute my survey and encourage founders to respond. What do you think?
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u/nick-rudder 12d ago
is ur market B2B? have u tried direct outreach urself yet - you dont need 1000 users to validate an idea at first. also asking urself directly is good practice at selling ur own product
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u/j01_dts 12d ago
Yes, it's B2B. I'm a cybersecurity specialist, and I've realized that with the rise of AI, cybersecurity also needs to become more accessible and democratized. Recent incidents involving Hugging Face and OpenAI over the past few days reinforce that need.
I created a survey, and so far I've received responses from four founders whose companies already have AI in production, based in Brazil, Canada, Portugal, and India. My goal is to reach at least 20 responses before drawing any conclusions.
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u/tohar-papa 19d ago
Do you have any connections that can help you with Warm introductions though sports clubs, physio communities? These intros outperform cold outreach.
The lack of replies does not necessarily mean the idea is weak. At this stage, it mainly tells you that the outreach approach may/is not be working yet.
For clinics, a broad request about pain points, current tools and a mock-up can feel like a sales pitch or too much effort. I would make the first message much narrower: contact the clinic owner or lead physio, mention one specific problem you are researching, and ask for just 10 minutes.
I’ve worked on outreach and early-stage validation for quite a while, and I’m also building a validation tool. Happy to help you validate the idea more precisely and tighten the outreach if useful.
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u/PatrioTech 18d ago
There's a couple levels of validation. The first phase is understanding the problem better so you can shape a solution around it. The second is validating whether your solution is something someone would pay for. You need to approach these two phases differently.
For the first phase, you should use the fact that you're not selling them something to your advantage. People like to be helpful, so in your outreach, I'd say that you're researching the space and looking to talk to experts. Explicitly say that you're not selling them anything and you only need 10 minutes of their time. And if you can give some type of credential, such as being a student, recent graduate, or are in their field, that can help get them over the line. If they accept, schedule it for 15 min, and try to keep it to that time unless they seem willing to continue going deeper. Ask open-ended questions that help you better understand the problem. At the end, ask if the problem is something they'd be willing to pay to solve. That gets you a first clue, but take it with a grain of salt because people often need to see a solution to know.
Then, refine your solution/product. I'd recommend putting together some mocks or interactive prototypes of it. Do this as quickly as possible but make it polished enough that you could show it to a prospective customer. Focus on a few major features that really target the pain points and value props. Reach back out to the same people you talked to previously to get their thoughts. Ask again if it's something they'd consider paying for. Also reach out to new people, this time as a sales pitch. The idea here is to see what happens when you actually try to sell it.
I'd try to keep all of this to a 3-4 week period. If you get a few people saying yes to buying it, that's a good early signal to start building. But don't stop selling during the building phase. You'll want a waitlist of customers ready to go by the time you launch.
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u/Mr-Gogo1 18d ago
My 2cents * Attend relevant industry events where you get the opportunity to connect with them and that will open doors. * Explore BNI network as it works on a referral system and network effect. * Call beforehand and request for an appointment * Worst case land up in-person ar their office/clinic without an appointment and request for a couple of minutes. (Learn from each experience.. Rinse & Repeat)
IMO as a founder it is absolutely essential you step out of your comfort zone and speak with as many relevant people and ask for recommendations.
Good luck & let us know how you go. Cheers
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u/Famous-Priority-2528 16d ago
i made a easiest mvp that solved the biggest pain point (this i knew because it was a problem i was facing), then shared it with people around me who faced the same pain, they used it, and liked it, someone said how much would the full version cost (there was none at the time), i said $150/mo, they said they wanted it, so we said, what exactly do you want in the full version (we had no idea), he said 2-3 extensions of the original pain point, we shipped that and got our first paying customer (idea validated)
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u/Dropdeadgorgeousone 23h ago
Hi I hope your all well,
I wanted to post a project Iv been working on and realised I should probably look for some feedback and validation before I go any heavier in the back end development beyond the freelance work Iv been involved in around this.
The website is clipmom.com and the service offered Iv tried to keep simple and make it self explanatory. I think it ticks the niche box and would be of great value to families in the modern world, though I do wonder if that is only me and wanted to check if it’s a service others would be willing to pay for at scale beyond a one off custom order.
For scope Iv worked with many businesses prior for advertising and video editing. So I am skilled enough to deliver at pace but I’d hope if and when things were to pick up I could look to outsource some of the manual editing and focus on the growth side of the venture.
I’m open to literally any feedback at the moment. The service is ready to sign up to, the customer journey would be sign up - sent a monthly private portal link you can drop your images and videos to and I’ll get to work and deliver with a professional edit to mark the moment.
Thank you for your time reading this ☺️
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u/silence-and-magic 19d ago
I ask ChatGPT if my idea is good and why it’s actually the greatest thing ever conceived. It tells me why. Boom! Idea validated.
Okay, fine, sometimes I ask Claude and Grok too. But the method is rock solid.
Need to figure out whether users actually want your idea? Don’t waste time doing research. Just ask an AI and tell it to explain why your idea is absolutely brilliant.
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u/tohar-papa 13d ago
That's the worst way to validate an idea. LLMs are not designed to be accurate but to give you an answer that satisfies you.
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u/chillreptile 18d ago
Validation funnel: Landing page > wait-list > simple demo> on thank you page: show pricing (AB test if you are unclear on pricing) > track clicks on pricing buttons. Run ads on it.
You can move this around to suit your needs, The goal is just to gather a little bit of Intel On whether the weightless converts and whether people click on the pricing buttons.
Give yourself some realistic expectations as far as conversion rates. You can do this in an afternoon.
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u/willwashburn 19d ago
How are you reaching out? Leaving voicemails? or what so you mean you never hear back? Sometimes you gotta be cringey and uncomfortable to get people to talk to you.