Guides

Idea Validation

The foundations of testing an idea: a step-by-step validation method, customer discovery interviews, survey design, idea scorecards and AI scorers, and the mistakes that produce false positives.

All Idea Validation guides

5 guides
Illustration of a bomber with red dots marking where returning aircraft were hit, used to explain survivorship biasIdea ValidationValidation Mistakes: False Positives, Vanity Metrics and Survivorship BiasThe most common ways founders fool themselves during validation: friendly sources, vanity metrics, survivorship bias, the gambler's fallacy…June 2, 2026Code on a laptop screen in a dark-themed editorIdea ValidationCan AI Score Your Startup Idea? Scorecards, Ratings and Their LimitsWhat AI idea scorers and startup scorecards can and cannot tell you, how to build your own weighted scorecard, and what horse-racing speed…April 21, 2026A survey worker in a high-visibility vest holds a clipboard in the desert at Joshua Tree National ParkIdea ValidationSurvey Design for Idea Validation: Questions, Bias and Sample SizeHow to design a validation survey that measures something real: question wording, common biases, sample size and margin of error, and why…April 7, 2026An interviewer holds up a phone to record a young woman's answers outdoorsIdea ValidationCustomer Discovery Interviews: How to Get Honest AnswersHow to run customer discovery interviews that produce facts rather than compliments: who to talk to, what to ask, what to avoid and how to…March 24, 2026A wall densely covered with colourful handwritten sticky notesIdea ValidationHow to Validate a Startup Idea Before You Bet Everything on ItA practical, step-by-step method for testing a startup or product idea: the riskiest assumption, customer evidence, willingness to pay and…March 10, 2026

Key ideas in this section

  1. Write the idea as assumptions. Problem, customer, solution, price and channel, each a claim that could be false.
  2. Interview before you build. Ask about past behaviour, not future intentions.
  3. Score it on evidence. A scorecard is only as good as the facts behind each number.

Don't gamble on your startup idea.
Validate it and make data-driven decisions.

Read: how to validate a startup idea →