How to Validate Business Problems Your Startup Will Solve
What Is Idea Validation?
Markets shift and customer needs change, but one thing stays true: validation costs little compared to the confidence and clarity it provides.
The idea validation process verifies that your business idea addresses a problem customers will pay to solve. It helps you avoid investing significant time and resources into building a product no one wants.
While building GummySearch, I spoke with over 100 early-stage founders actively validating, building, launching, and growing their products.
I’ve seen two stories repeat themselves:
Some founders skip validation, spend months building their product, and launch in an empty room.
Others take the time to validate, understand their audience deeply, and launch to customers ready to buy.
This post distills everything I’ve learned from those conversations into actionable insights to help you validate your idea and avoid costly missteps.
What Happens If You Don't Validate Your Product Idea?
Skipping validation leads to silence and a trip to the Valley of Despair. This is where startup founders face the sinking realization that no one actually needs what they’ve built.
Sunk cost kicks in, and instead of pivoting, they double down, pouring even more time into something unlikely to succeed.
Should you validate your idea? Almost always, yes. The only exceptions are if you deeply understand your market and can build your MVP so quickly that it takes less time than finding people to validate with.
Idea Validation Checklist
If you’re serious about bringing your idea to life, the smart first step is validation.
The good news is, that it doesn’t have to take long. You just need to define the right problems, talk to the right people, and ask the right questions. Here’s how:
1. Find Your Target Audience for Business Problem Validation
When you focus on who you’re serving, you’ll spot meaningful problems faster, understand their urgency, and build a solution that fits into their lives.
Problems don’t exist in a vacuum! Real people experience them, and they’re the ones who’ll buy your solution in the end.
Ask yourself:
Who are these people? Where do they spend their time? What do they worry about?
Find their online communities and get familiar. For inspiration, check out The Hive Index for a curated list of online communities. And for Reddit, well, you already know GummySearch is your go-to.
2. Define the Problem Your Idea Should Solve
At this stage, you know you’re going to make something – you just don’t know what it is yet.
When documenting this, focus 95% on the problem you’re solving and 5% on your solution.
It will evolve after you talk to people. And that’s a good thing!
I like to use a problem/customer statement template for every idea I seriously consider.
Consider the Vitamin vs. Painkiller Debate
You’ve probably heard that some problems are vitamins and others are painkillers:
Painkillers solve urgent, costly problems that call for immediate solutions.
Vitamins are nice-to-have solutions. They make life better but aren’t critical.
For example, a product that helps people remember to drink water is a vitamin – it’s helpful, but no one’s losing sleep over forgetting to consume 2L of water. In contrast, a painkiller is a product that prevents dehydration for endurance athletes solving real, immediate pain.
While it’s true that both types of problems can succeed, painkillers are a better bet for startups. They have limited resources and runway, and painkiller or hair-on-fire problems already have customers actively searching for solutions and willing to pay for them.
Make Your Problem Research During Idea Validation Data-Driven
Even during the most iterative stages of product development, you want to make sure your ideas aren’t happening in a vacuum.
A great way to ground your research is by creating a Problem Hypothesis. It’s a guiding statement that summarizes the issue you believe exists, who it affects, and what happens if you can solve it.
Here’s a simple template:
“We believe that (Problem) happens because of (Reason). If we solve it by (Method), our customers will achieve (Outcome).”
For example:
“We believe that grocery delivery services are unreliable, causing people in remote areas to struggle to access fresh, high-quality food. If we create a meal kit solution specifically designed for rural deliveries, customers will save time, reduce stress, and enjoy healthier meals.”
A strong hypothesis keeps your research and interviews focused on the right questions. It also prevents you from jumping to conclusions too early.
3. Determine Your Biggest Risks
When defining your idea, write down the risks honestly. Your goal during validation is to disprove them through research and interviews. Consider the following:
Product risk is the risk you can’t build your product. Maybe it requires technical skills you don’t have, or an API integration isn’t available. Founders often over-focus here, rushing to build an MVP before talking to customers. Yes, it’s real, but it’s rarely the biggest issue.
In most cases, market risk and channel risk deserve more attention.
Market risk is the risk no one will pay for your product. Maybe the problem isn’t painful enough, or users expect free alternatives (like Google) and see no reason to pay you.
Channel risk is the risk you can’t effectively find the customers who’d pay for your product or acquisition costs make it unsustainable. Founders often fall into the trap of thinking, “If I build it, they will come.” That’s rarely true.
4. Requesting Interviews During Business Problem Validation
You’ve defined your problem, identified your target customers, and know where to find them. Nice work!
Now it’s time to talk to them. But how do you ask for something as valuable as their time?
Focus on the problem, not your solution. Describe the issue you’re tackling and ask if they experience it in their day-to-day life.
The 4 “Make”s of Interview Requests:
Make them curious.
Make it about them, not you.
Make it worth their while.
Make them feel like experts.
If you’re struggling to get interviews, it’s usually because the problem isn’t real or you’re in the wrong communities.
In this case, go back to refining your problem and customer definitions.
5. Do the Interviews!
You've got your target customer on the phone (or in person, depending on your case) and you want to validate that your product is worth building.
Rule #1 – Don’t mention your product! You won’t get honest feedback that way. At this stage, your goal isn’t to validate it but to validate the problem. You’re here to deeply understand your customer’s struggles, not to pitch your solution. Nail the problem first, and the right product will follow.
Instead, ask them about their problems and how they currently solve them. Take each of the product, market, and channel risks you've defined, and ask the tough questions to disprove them.
For a great guide on talking to potential customers, read The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. You'll learn a lot about your customers' day-to-day, pain points, current solutions, and the things that matter most to them.
Your goal is to hear this: “I have this pain point, it’s a huge thorn in my side, and I will pay handsomely for someone to solve this problem for me.” Painkillers 😉.
I recommend including some key questions in your interview:
"What emotions do you feel when you come across this problem?"
"How do you currently solve this problem?"
"Have you tried \_\_ (competitor name)? Why? Why not?"
"How would you quantify the money/time that this problem costs you?"
"What kind of systems would you require an integration with to use a solution for this problem?"
6. Assess Feedback to Your Product Idea
At this stage, your interviews will lead you down one of two paths. Both are valuable outcomes – what matters is what you do next.
Path A: Build, Iterate, Launch with Confidence
You don’t need 10 perfect interviews, but you do need patterns. Are you repeatedly hearing the same frustrations, struggles, and desires? They are your green light.
Here’s how you know you’ve validated a problem:
Customers clearly describe the problem in their own words.
They’ve tried (and failed) to solve it themselves.
They show frustration, urgency, and a willingness to pay.
The same pain points keep coming up.
They come from reliable distribution channels.
Congrats! You’ve validated your idea. There’s still uncertainty ahead, but now you know you’re solving a problem people will pay for. You’ve likely also found insights to guide your product roadmap, integrations, and distribution strategy.
Path B: Solve Another Problem
If your interviews revealed that:
The problem isn’t real.
People won’t pay for a solution.
You can’t disprove key risks.
That’s still a win. After all, you avoided wasting months building something nobody wants.
By the way, you don’t need to start over. Small tweaks can make a big difference. Maybe you uncovered a new pain point or need to explore different acquisition channels.
Iterate on your idea, refine your questions, and talk to 10 more people.
Product Idea Validation Is a Continuous Process
Founders who skip customer conversations and focus only on the product usually end up in the Valley of Despair. And trust me, you don’t want to be there.
Customer conversations matter at every stage of your product journey. Whether you’re launching a new feature, tweaking your positioning, or testing a new distribution channel, staying connected to your audience keeps you on track.
Plus, GummySearch keeps you plugged into live conversations, helping you spot ideas for new features, products, upselling, cross-selling, and better customer experiences.
Stay close to your audience. They’ll show you the way.