Learning Path
Validate Before You Build Path
Most business ideas fail for the same reason: they were built before they were tested. This path teaches the method every other path in this academy uses — ten interviews, a pre-payment test, a landing-page test, scoring, and kill criteria — so you can test one idea properly before spending money and months on it.
How this path works. Each lesson below is a short summary of the topic it links to, with an exercise that proves you can do the work. Work through them in order, do the exercise, and mark each lesson complete when you have read the guide and done the work. The two-question check under each lesson is for yourself — it is not scored and it is not a certificate. Your progress is stored only in your own browser, in local storage — no account, nothing sent to us. Completing this path gives you no certificate and no qualification, and it promises no income: the proof is the finished work from the capstone lesson, not a certificate.
What you will learn
- Why most ideas fail: building before validating.
- The ten-interview test: what to ask, and what counts as a yes.
- The pre-payment test: money is the only honest vote.
- The landing-page test and scoring an idea with weights you choose.
- Kill criteria: when to stop, and what to do instead.
Your progress
0 of 6 lessons complete.
The lessons
Read each lesson summary, then open the full guide it links to. The summaries are written for this path — they do not repeat the guides, they prepare you for them.
Lesson 1: Why most ideas fail — building before validating
Most ideas do not fail because they are bad ideas — they fail because they were built before they were tested. The builder spends months and money on a product, launches it, and discovers that nobody wants it, or wants it differently, or will not pay for it. The failure was not the idea; it was the order. Validation is the act of reversing the order: test first, build second, and let the test decide the shape of the build.
This lesson names the failure pattern clearly: the builder fell in love with the solution and never checked the problem. You will learn the three questions validation answers — does the problem exist, is it painful enough to pay for, and can you reach the people who have it — and why a yes to all three is the only permission a build needs.
Exercise: Write the three validation questions for your idea, and answer each from what you know today.
Check yourself — two questions on this lesson
1. Why do most ideas fail?
They were built before they were tested.
2. What three questions must validation answer?
Does the problem exist, is it painful enough to pay, and can you reach the people?
Lesson 2: The 10-interview test — what to ask, what counts as a yes
Ten interviews are the consensus validation method for a reason: they are enough to see a pattern and few enough to finish in a week. The interview is not a sales call — you are not pitching, you are listening. Ask what the problem costs them today, what they have tried, what they would pay to remove it, and — the question that matters most — what they did last time the problem hurt. What people do is the evidence; what they say they would do is the guess.
This lesson teaches the interview script and the yes: a yes is not polite interest, it is a yes that costs the interviewee something — a follow-up call, an introduction, or a commitment to try the solution. Three yeses that cost something are worth more than ten polite yeses that cost nothing.
Exercise: Write your interview script: five questions, and the definition of a yes that costs something.
Check yourself — two questions on this lesson
1. What is the interview for?
Listening — what the problem costs, what was tried, what they did last time.
2. What counts as a yes?
A yes that costs the interviewee something — a follow-up, an intro, a commitment.
Lesson 3: The pre-payment test — money is the only honest vote
People will say almost anything in a survey and do almost nothing afterwards. Money is the only honest vote: if a person will pay for the idea before it exists — a deposit, a founding price, a pre-order — they want it. If they will not, they do not, whatever they said in the interview. The pre-payment test is the validation step that cannot be faked, and it is the step most builders skip, because it is the step that can say no.
This lesson runs the pre-payment test honestly: what to offer, how much to ask, what to promise in return — a clear delivery date and a refund if it does not arrive — and what a fail means. You will learn why a failed pre-payment test is the best result a builder can get cheaply: it cost days, not months, and it saved the build.
Exercise: Design your pre-payment offer: the price, the promise, and the refund if it does not arrive.
Check yourself — two questions on this lesson
1. Why is money the honest vote?
Because people say anything in a survey and do almost nothing afterwards — payment cannot be faked.
2. What is a failed test worth?
The best cheap result: it cost days and saved months.
Lesson 4: The landing-page test — demand proof before build
A landing page is a test of whether strangers will act on your idea: one page, one promise, one button — sign up or pre-order — and a count of how many did. The green-light bar, as reported, is 30 qualified signups or 5 paid pre-orders in 14 days: below that, keep testing or change the idea; above it, you have demand proof worth building on. A landing page alone can lie — a pretty page with no traffic proves nothing — so the test is the traffic plus the count, not the page.
This lesson builds the landing-page test: the promise that must be clear enough to act on, the traffic you will send to it, and the count that decides. You will learn the difference between a visit and a conversion — a visit is curiosity, a conversion is a decision — and why the 14-day window matters: demand that cannot be found in two weeks is demand you will not find by waiting.
Exercise: Build your landing page test: the promise, the traffic source, and the count that decides.
Check yourself — two questions on this lesson
1. What is the reported green-light bar?
30 qualified signups or 5 paid pre-orders in 14 days.
2. What is the difference between a visit and a conversion?
A visit is curiosity; a conversion is a decision.
Lesson 5: Scoring an idea — weighted criteria, your weights, your call
Scoring an idea means choosing your criteria, weighting them, and letting the total speak — your weights, your call. The criteria are the things that matter to you: how painful the problem is, how many people have it, how much they pay already, how hard it is to reach them, how much it costs you to build. A tool that just picks a winner for you is not a decision; it is a guess with a button. The comparison tool scores qualitatively, and the verdict stays yours.
This lesson builds your scorecard with the comparison tool: the criteria, the weights you chose and why, and the score for your idea — with the honest limit stated: a score is a way to compare ideas, not a truth about them. Two ideas close in score are two ideas to test further, not a winner and a loser.
Exercise: Score your idea on five criteria with weights you chose, and write the verdict in one sentence.
Check yourself — two questions on this lesson
1. Who chooses the weights?
You do — your weights, your call.
2. What is a score for?
Comparing ideas — not declaring a truth about them.
Lesson 6: Kill criteria — when to stop, and what to do instead
Every good test needs a stop rule written in advance: if ten interviews produce no costly yes, stop; if the pre-payment test gets no payments, stop; if the landing page gets no conversions in fourteen days, stop. Kill criteria are not pessimism — they are the rule that stops a builder spending six months on an idea the tests already rejected. A test without a stop rule is not a test; it is a hobby with a deadline that never arrives.
This lesson writes your kill criteria before the tests run, and answers the question that follows a kill: what to do instead. The learning stays — the problem you found, the interviews, the test result — and the method moves to the next idea. It ends with the capstone: a validation report for one idea, with interviews done, the pre-payment test run, the score, and the kill or continue decision recorded.
Exercise: Capstone: finish your validation report — interviews, pre-payment test, score, and the kill or continue decision.
Check yourself — two questions on this lesson
1. Why write kill criteria in advance?
So a builder stops spending months on an idea the tests already rejected.
2. What stays after a kill?
The learning and the method — they move to the next idea.
Try the tools
These free tools let you practise what the lessons describe — everything runs in your browser, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
- Business Model Comparison — score models against criteria you choose
- Startup Cost Calculator — total the cost of starting
- Sales Target Calculator — work out how many sales the idea needs
Check what you learned
6 questions, all based on the lessons above. Answer them all, then check your score — each answer explains itself, so a wrong answer teaches as much as a right one. The quiz is practice, not a test: there is no pass mark and no certificate.
Answer all 6 questions, then check your score.
Download your notes
Download a plain-text summary of this path: the lesson list, which lessons you marked complete, and your quiz score. The file is generated on your device — nothing is uploaded.
Key terms in this path
The terms this path uses are defined in the Glossary, each with an example. If a lesson uses a word you do not know, look it up there first.
Frequently asked questions
What does validate mean for a business idea?
Test it before building it: talk to the people who have the problem, and ask them to show commitment — by paying, signing up, or pre-ordering — before you spend money and months on the build.
How many interviews do I need?
Ten is the consensus number across the niches this site covers — enough to see a pattern, few enough to do in a week. The interview lesson shows what to ask and what counts as a yes.
What if nobody wants my idea?
Then the validation worked — you learned it for the price of ten conversations instead of six months of building. Kill criteria are a success, not a failure.
Is a landing page enough to validate?
It is one test among three: interviews, pre-payment, and the landing page. A landing page alone can lie — 30 qualified signups or 5 paid pre-orders in 14 days is the green-light bar, as reported, and below it you keep testing.
What should I do after killing an idea?
Take the learning with you — the problem you found, the interviews, the test result — and apply the same method to the next idea. The method is the asset, not the idea.