1.2 The Only Validation That Counts

“I would use that” is the most expensive sentence a founder can hear. It costs you nothing to say and nothing to mean, which is exactly why people say it. Friends, strangers at meetups, people in your target demographic who genuinely want to be helpful, they will all tell you your idea is great. None of them are lying. They just aren’t your customers yet, and most of them never will be.

You cannot build a business on intent. You build it on money.

Surveys don’t count. Landing page views don’t count. Waitlist signups without payment attached don’t count. Anish built Save Wise, posted it on Product Hunt and Hacker News, got floods of traffic, and watched 95 to 96 percent of it bounce without leaving a single piece of useful feedback. Traffic is not validation. A stranger clicking your link proves they were curious for three seconds, nothing more.

The only signal that counts is someone handing you money before you’ve built the thing.

This is the buy button test. Before you write a line of code, you put up a page that describes what you’re building and a real price. You send it to the people you think will buy it. You watch what happens. If they click “buy” and enter payment details, you have a signal. If they close the tab and say “let me know when it’s ready,” you have a polite rejection dressed up as encouragement.

If charging upfront feels too aggressive, use the refundable deposit framework. You collect a real payment, typically $97 to $500 depending on your price point, and you tell the buyer it’s fully refundable if you don’t deliver. This is not a trick. It’s a filter. People who aren’t actually willing to pay won’t bother, and people who genuinely want the thing will put money down because the risk is zero. The deposit turns a vague “I’m interested” into a real commitment from both sides.

Ericos validated Kaching Bundles before it was published by posting a screenshot of the design in Facebook e-commerce groups. He got more than 100 likes and multiple comments asking where to download it. That’s a meaningful signal, but it’s still upstream of money. What turned it into a real business was getting it in front of his existing Shopify clients, people who were already paying him for freelance work, and converting them into first customers. He had prior relationships and real context. That’s why it worked. Cold interest without a transaction behind it is still just noise.

Andre Heckle Jr. did it cleaner. When he launched ListKit, he didn’t guess whether people wanted it. He emailed his existing paying customers from his agency and coaching program. He offered 50 free leads as a lead magnet, created immediate value, and those customers rushed to support the launch because they’d been on the journey with him. ListKit hit $200,000 MRR. The validation came from people with their wallets already open, not from a survey.

You don’t need 500 people to tell you your idea is good. You need 10 people to pay you before you build it.

Here’s what you do this week. Write a one-paragraph description of what you’re building and a price. Send it to 20 people in your target market with a payment link. Not a “register your interest” form. A real payment link. If three of them pay, you have something worth building. If zero of them pay, you have saved yourself six months of your life.