How do I test whether a niche is real before I commit months of building to it?
Run a small, cheap experiment aimed only at that niche: a landing page in their language, ten customer conversations, or a pre-sale, and watch whether they lean in or nod politely. Real niches show up as people trying to pay or asking when it ships, not as encouraging feedback. As a starting point, spend two weeks and no code trying to get five people in the niche to commit something (money, a pilot slot, their calendar) before you decide it's your beachhead.
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The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past behaviour, not your idea, so you can't be lied to. If a founder reads one thing before talking to a single customer, it's this.
This is the most concrete walkthrough of how to test a niche when you have nothing built yet: put up a page describing the offer and count who actually clicks or signs up. It treats a click as a behavior, not an opinion, which is exactly the difference between real demand and polite interest. It gives you the seven steps, rough benchmarks, and the ethics of an honest reveal page, so you can run it this week for almost no money.
The fastest way to stand up a fake-door landing page. Build a one-page site in an afternoon, add an email capture, and measure whether anyone actually tries to sign up for what you are describing. Free to start, no code.
