Validation is not asking people whether they like your idea. People are generous, optimistic, and very good at imagining a future they will never pay for. Validation is looking for evidence that a problem is real, repeated, and important enough to change behavior.
Start with the moment, not the market
We begin with the last time the problem happened. What triggered it? What did the person do next? What did the workaround cost in time, money, attention, or confidence? Specific recent behavior is more useful than a prediction about future behavior.
Good interviews stay close to the lived sequence. We listen for language the user actually uses, the tools already in the workflow, and the point where the existing solution stops being good enough.
An evidence ladder
Not every signal has the same weight. We move from low-cost evidence to high-commitment evidence:
- Context. Talk to people who experienced the problem recently.
- Pattern. Compare conversations until the same friction appears without prompting.
- Alternative. Map what people do today, including spreadsheets, messages, memory, and manual labor.
- Commitment. Look for time, access, data, a referral, a pilot, or money. Action is stronger than approval.
- Prototype. Put one narrow workflow in front of real users and observe what they do without explanation.
What we want to know after three days
At the end of a sprint, the output is not a market-sized promise. It is a sharper decision. We should know who feels the pain, what they do today, where a product can create leverage, and what the smallest useful next experiment looks like.
A useful validation sprint can end in a “no.” That is not a failure. It is a cheap, high-quality answer that protects the team from building the wrong thing beautifully.