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Benjamin Yoskovitz

identify a target market and speak to (ideally in-person) 30-50 people in that market and validate (or invalidate) whether they have the problem you think you can solve.

If they do have that problem, then you can find a way to build a prototype or even just put together an HTML prototype or a Powerpoint deck together and go back to those people and interview them about your solution. If that validates, then you build.

Chances are when you do Problem Interviews you’ll find there are holes in your reasoning. You’ll go back and change your hypotheses and assumptions and do it again.

Bottom line – you absolutely do NOT need a prototype to validate an idea.

The more we narrowed our focus the less motivated we became.  We went from looking at a massive addressable market to a subset of people and a minimal product offering.

Focusing, as difficult as it was, was necessary given the reality that we were two

Write everything down.

best ways to drastically narrow your scope, it’s easy to list four or five options but having to pick just one and describe it fully really focuses things.

Pitching everyday

it helps you to iterate much faster.

People tend to love your idea when it’s vague, as they develop their own picture of what it will really be.  -- What we found to really work well was building a baseline pitch deck and iterating on it every day based on what we had learned.

Take all the “ands” out. 

We help parents to fix the problems in their child's daily routine and to encourage them to try new things

We help parents to fix the one or two main problems in their child's daily routine. 

It’s tough to not start writing code after your first positive interview.

Not because we found the best problem/solution mix, but rather because we found one solution that we can quickly test and on which we can iterate.