2 builders who never spoke to each other

Refuse to build until people have committed money

Fix a number of paying commitments in advance and treat falling short as a decision rather than a setback. Naming the threshold before you go looking stops you quietly lowering it once you are attached to the idea.

The method

1. 01

   Set the bar at roughly ten people offering money on the condition that you build it; nothing weaker counts as validation.

2. 02

   Invert the usual order and line up ten people who commit to buying before you build the thing.

3. 03

   Refuse to start building until a specific number of named people have committed money at a stated price, and walk away from the idea if you cannot find them.

4. 04

   Use a hard filter on new ideas: proceed only when several people say outright that they need it and would pay you, and abandon anything that gets a weaker response.

5. 05

   State a pass/fail threshold in public before selling anything: a minimum number of buyers, or you refund everyone and drop the idea.

What it returned

• 30

  Jason Cohen dropped a pre-WP Engine idea because he could not find enough people willing to pay, then found 30 to 40 people who agreed to pay $50 a month before he built WP Engine.

• Justin cites Jason Cohen of WP Engine for this threshold.

• Justin takes the ten-buyers rule from Jason Cohen.

• Justin quotes Derek Sivers for this threshold.

Sources

• From idea - to tweet - to live productFlorin Pop · florin-pop.com · Adding the Stripe Link · 2024-10-05
• How (not) to validate your ideaJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · How to (really) validate your idea · undated
• When should you quit?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · But how do you know when to give up? · undated
• Ultimate validationJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · How do you validate your idea? · undated
• Three reasons product launches failNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Product/audience fit · 2014-03-18