Find & validate your idea

What founders use for find & validate your idea, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. The canonical fake-door test, told by the founder who ran it. Buffer started as a two-page site: one page pitched the tool, a... Buffer Article · ~10 min read Idea to Paying Customers in 7 Weeks: How We Did It Joel Gascoigne In 3 answers
2. The two ways to fake a product while you test real demand. Do the work by hand in the open (concierge), or hide the manual work... LogRocket Article · ~12 min read Concierge vs. Wizard of Oz MVP LogRocket In 3 answers
3. Blank invented customer development, and this manifesto boils it into a short set of rules, starting with the idea that there... Steve Blank Essay · 12 min read Nail the Customer Development Manifesto to the Wall Steve Blank In 3 answers
4. A clean, practical playbook for the mechanics: where to place the door, what to measure, and how to avoid annoying the people... Learning Loop Article · ~12 min read Fake Door Testing: What It Is and How to Run One Learning Loop In 3 answers
5. This is the best method for the exact job of learning an industry's language when you cannot yet get face time with people in... Stacking the Bricks (Amy Hoy) Article · video walkthrough Sales Safari in Action Amy Hoy In 3 answers
6. Before you optimize a byte, you need to know who you are building for, and Pai's India1, India2, India3 framing is the clearest... SajithPai.com Essay · Long read India2, English Tax and Building for the Next Billion Users Sajith Pai In 3 answers
7. A tight distillation of what YC drills into every batch, with launch quickly and iterate as a core plank. It is the checklist... Michael Seibel (michaelseibel.com) Article · 10 min read YC's Essential Startup Advice Geoff Ralston, Michael Seibel In 3 answers
8. Shapiro gives you five specific things to monitor (technology, behavior, environment, regulation, distribution) so your... Julian Shapiro (Startup Handbook) Essay · 20 min read Finding Startup Ideas through Market Timing Julian Shapiro In 3 answers
9. Written from an early-stage investor's chair, this walks the calculation with examples and is blunt that a bottom-up build... Antler Article TAM, SAM and SOM: How to Calculate the Size of Your Market Akshat Agarwal In 3 answers
10. This one focuses squarely on the method your short answer champions, building TAM up from real customer counts and pricing... Qubit Capital Article Bottom-Up Market Sizing for Startups Qubit Capital In 3 answers
11. A follow up that applies the idea maze to a wave many of you are riding right now. It shows how founders repeatedly chased the... cdixon.org Essay · 5 min read The idea maze for AI startups Chris Dixon In 3 answers
12. Perez shows that real technological revolutions run on 50 year cycles with a predictable frenzy, a crash, and then a long... Goodreads Book · 224 pages Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital Carlota Perez In 3 answers
13. Naval defines specific knowledge as the thing you cannot be trained for, built from your curiosity, obsessions, and the way you... Naval Essay · 6 min read Arm Yourself With Specific Knowledge Naval Ravikant In 3 answers
14. An investor's view of why founder-market fit is a top filter at the earliest stage, when there is little else to judge. It... F2 Venture Capital Article · 8 min read Founder Market Fit Matters F2 VC In 3 answers
15. This is about the unique insight half of 'why you': seeing a market others dismiss and having the conviction to build there. It... First Round Review Article · 20 min read Future Founders, Here's How to Spot and Build in Nonobvious Markets Elad Gil In 3 answers
16. Intel's former CEO defines the "strategic inflection point," the moment a real shift changes the fundamentals of a business,... Andrew S. Grove (Penguin Random House) Book · Book (~210 pages) Only the Paranoid Survive Andrew S. Grove In 3 answers
17. The best book on positioning against competitors by understanding the alternatives customers actually consider. Directly turns... aprildunford.com Book · ~200 pages Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April Dunford In 2 answers
18. A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 B2B customers Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
19. The single most useful mental model for whether you actually need to raise. Graham's 'default alive vs default dead' framing... paulgraham.com Article · 10 min read Default Alive or Default Dead? Paul Graham In 2 answers
20. The clearest distillation of Naval's philosophy on wealth, leverage, and, crucially, inner peace. Free to read online, it... navalmanack.com Book · medium The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness Eric Jorgenson (curating Naval Ravikant) In 2 answers
21. Sometimes the two ideas are a proxy for a deeper problem: you have no agreed way to make a call when you disagree. This HBR... Harvard Business Review Article · ~8 min read Cofounders Need to Learn How to (Productively) Disagree Evelyn Nam In 2 answers
22. This is the cleanest short explanation of the two manual-first MVPs and, more importantly, how they differ, which is where most... Mind the Product Article · ~8 min read Wizard of Oz vs Concierge Testing: Behind the Curtain or Behind the Desk? Amanda White In 2 answers
23. This is written by Visible, a platform that sits on the investor side of the table, so it explains bottom-up sizing the way a... Visible.vc Article · ~10 min read Bottom-Up Market Sizing: What It Is and How to Do It Angelina Graumann In 2 answers
24. This piece takes the exact stance the question is testing: fit is earned, not handed to you on day one. Its line, you earn fit... StartUp to Scale Up Article Founder-Market Fit: What It Is and How to Prove You Have It James Sinclair In 2 answers

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