The classic validation advice involves calling potential customers and asking them about their problems. It is effective. It is also, for a significant portion of founders, deeply aversive.
The situation
Tomas Vrabel had an idea for a subscription tool aimed at small property managers. Before building anything, he needed to know whether the problem he was solving was real to other people, not just to him.
Cold calls were off the table. He does not enjoy them and suspected his discomfort would make the conversations less useful anyway.
What he did instead
He wrote a detailed post in a property management forum describing the problem — not his solution — and asked whether others experienced it. Fourteen people responded. He followed up with each by private message, asking three specific questions about their current workaround.
That process took 11 days and cost nothing. It also produced clearer information than he expected, because respondents wrote considered answers rather than giving polite verbal agreement.
The pattern worth noting
Written validation is slower than phone calls. It is also asynchronous, which means respondents have time to think, and their answers tend to be more precise.
- Forum posts targeting a specific problem attract self-selected respondents who actually have that problem
- Written follow-up questions produce more considered answers than live calls
- Validation does not require a method that makes you perform confidence you do not feel