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independence4 unconnected · 1 more author in those circles
applies to

b2b and consumer, no audience needed

confidence

high

evidence

11 claims · 9 articles · 4 receipts

window

2017-05-12 → 2026-06-18

4 builders who never spoke to each other

Count only payment as validation

Signatures on a waitlist, an accelerator place, a directory ranking and one excited beta user are all mistaken for evidence, and none of them is. The substitutes people reach for when they are afraid to ask for money are polling friends, posting the idea publicly and carrying on building in private.

The method

  1. 01

    Count only payment as validation - not an accelerator acceptance, not the top spot on Product Hunt, not one excited beta user.

  2. 02

    Recognise the three substitutes people reach for when scared of asking for money - polling friends, posting the idea on startup forums, and continuing to build in private - and refuse all of them.

  3. 03

    Do not count a waitlist as validation: signatures are not the same signal as a payment.

  4. 04

    Do not wait for statistical significance in a viability test; a handful of conversions is enough to justify moving to the next test.

  5. 05

    Assess an early idea on two measures: the number of people who react at all, and how strongly they react.

What it returned

  • 41

    Zue had 41 visitors and 7 conversions, granted the rate was untrustworthy, and treated it as sufficient grounds to continue.

  • 14

    Adam Wathan took 14 orders the night before he officially opened sales, from buyers who worked out how to pay early.

  • Justin notes it was seeing how much audiences loved his cartoons that carried Walt Disney through ten years before the money arrived; ConvertKit took Nathan Barry three years, and MailChimp ran six years as a side project.

  • Samples went to juice enthusiasts, health conscious people and people at risk of diabetes. Reactions ran from mild approval to refusal to touch it again even at no cost.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.

More in product

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.