Validation Is Overrated
Founders chase validation like it proves something. Most of what passes for validation proves nothing, and chasing it wastes the time that would.
Validate your idea. Get validation before you build. The word has become gospel in startup advice, and founders spend months chasing it — surveys, interviews, sign-up forms, encouraging conversations. But most of what founders call validation is nothing of the sort. It is reassurance dressed up as evidence, and chasing it is one of the most common ways to feel productive while learning nothing. Validation, as it is usually practiced, is badly overrated.
Why the conventional wisdom is wrong
The conventional wisdom is wrong because the things founders treat as validation are mostly cheap signals that cost the other person nothing. People saying they like your idea, would "definitely use it," or filling in a survey are giving you politeness, not proof. Humans are wired to be encouraging, especially to a hopeful founder in front of them. Soft validation does not predict behavior — it predicts that people are nice. And a founder who collects enough of it can convince themselves they have proven a market when all they have proven is that people will not insult them.
Surveys and "would you use this" questions measure stated intent, which is a notoriously poor predictor of action.
Friends, family, and warm contacts give biased, comforting feedback that validates almost anything.
Vanity validation — likes, sign-ups, applause — feels like progress while telling you nothing about willingness to pay.
What is actually true
What is actually true is that the only validation worth anything is costly — it requires the other person to give up something they value. The clearest signal in business is money: someone paying you, or pre-paying, or signing a contract. After that comes time, effort, and reputation — a customer who integrates your product, who refers others, who changes their workflow to use you. Those cost something, and because they cost something, they actually predict behavior. Everything cheaper than that is noise that feels like signal.
This also means the fastest validation is usually to build the smallest real thing and try to sell it, not to research endlessly before building. A founder who spends three months on validation surveys learns less than one who spends three weeks trying to get a single customer to actually pay. The market does not answer questionnaires honestly. It answers with its wallet.
Validation that actually counts
Someone pays you real money, ideally before the thing is even fully built.
A customer changes their behavior or workflow to use what you made.
People refer others without being asked, putting their own reputation on the line.
Customers come back and use it again, which no survey can ever promise.
What we have seen
When we started Through The Glass Creatives from nothing, we did not have the luxury of a validation phase — we needed paying clients to eat. So our validation was the only kind that counts: could we get someone to pay us for work, and would they come back. That is a far harder and far more honest test than any survey, and passing it repeatedly is how we grew into an award-winning company. We have since watched founders spend months validating an idea with glowing feedback, build the thing everyone "loved," and then discover that not one of those enthusiastic people would actually pay for it. The validation was real. The willingness to pay never existed.
The honest take
Most validation is a way to delay the only test that matters while feeling like you are de-risking. Encouragement is not evidence, sign-ups are not sales, and "I would use that" is not "here is my money." If you want to know whether you have a business, stop collecting opinions and try to get someone to pay you for the smallest real version of it. That is uncomfortable, which is exactly why it works. The market tells the truth only when telling it costs the customer something. Chase that, and skip the rest.
Sources
TTGC — lessons from building and scaling our own company and advising clients.
