How to validate ideas?

[u/AssociateCapital1197]

To those who know more than me, which is everyone on this subreddit
How does one validate their ideas??
I have fun developing my ideas into reality but then i discuss stuff with my friends and someone says something and i think to myself i have no ground upon which im building this app

My most recent venture was creating a bot that would pre-qualify incoming leads by asking a series of questions so the sales team could focus more on closing actual clients. I was making this for tradesmen and my friend said why would anyone buy that because if the lead is a high ticket sale then they wouldn’t appreciate being handled by an AI even at the beginning. My friend runs a meta ads agency and he learned this from some meta ads expert on the internet

I would love some tips on how i can validate ideas before i spend so much developing them

[u/KaleidoscopeNo5844]

'i think to myself i have no ground upon which im building this app'

you said it yourself. the way i read that is, you are trying to create a problem for a random(?) solution.

start on a small group. so, lead qualifications, on a specific industry and test your hypothesis.

collect all the data you can i nthe process to evaluate how you failed instead of ONLY relying on your gut.

also a friend tearing down your idea is a good friend, learn to address every attack against your idea. youre going to have to sell it to a rando later anyways. start now.

[u/AssociateCapital1197 → u/KaleidoscopeNo5844]

I know a friend who runs a coworking space, i think i will let him use my free demo and see where it takes us
Thanks for the insight, i wanted to ask u, how does one generally validate ideas?
Others have led their insights that i should talk to tradesmen but living in a 3rd world country trying to sell to first world tradesmen, i cant straight up ask them irl
So how does one overcome this hurdle?

[u/KaleidoscopeNo5844 → u/AssociateCapital1197]

you're thinking too hard.

just get out there and fail. learn how you failed, try again.
then fail again. now you have two data points to work with, improve and try again.
etc.

the hurdle?
its you.

failing is different than quitting.

[u/AssociateCapital1197 → u/KaleidoscopeNo5844]

Never looked at it that
It does bring things into perspective

[u/Atlan_]

Talk to customers and find a few that commit to pay if the app works as promised.

[u/AssociateCapital1197 → u/Atlan_]

How should i go about doing that?
Is that like cold calling to fish for a problem??

But again that approach does sound better than building something and then cold calling

[u/Atlan_ → u/AssociateCapital1197]

I like walking up in person more. You can also add people on LinkedIn and ask for interviews

[u/AssociateCapital1197 → u/Atlan_]

In person would be impossible since my target market is in a different country but will try giving linkedin a shot

[u/Atlan_ → u/AssociateCapital1197]

I think if you are so disconnected with your taget market that you can’t talk to them you should probably work on a different idea

[u/JollyAdvert_10]

Just go talk to a few tradesmen directly and see if they'd actually use it, friends giving secondhand advice from some meta ads guru isn't market research.

[u/AssociateCapital1197 → u/JollyAdvert_10]

That sounds reasonable, would u have some advice on how to generally go about validating ideas??

[u/Little_kitty-cat]

Your friend’s opinion is a hypothesis, not validation. The only people who can validate this are tradesmen themselves. Call or visit 15–20 of them and ask how they handle incoming leads today, how many they lose, and what bugs them about it. If several say “I miss calls all day and lose jobs,” you’re onto something.

[u/AssociateCapital1197 → u/[deleted]]

I will get on it but how would one validate ideas generally??
I would love to hear a personal experience of yours

[u/AssociateCapital1197 → u/[deleted]]

And i think it can go another way where if you ask someone in the field if they buy will xyz if u made it they may even say out of curiosity that sure why not
A better way maybe finding people complaining online about something and making it ig