How to validate your startup idea

Ponder and probe

1. What’s a trend that’s emerging but underserved (e.g. security, collaboration)?


2. What’s a transformative technology that’s emerging that’s underutilized (e.g. data scalability)?


3. How many potential customers have you spoken with about your idea?


4. How important to potential customers is the problem you’re exploring, on a scale of 1 to 10?

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I tell founders to think about the problem they’re solving, specifically my LUV framework:

1. Large: Is the problem you’re aiming to solve large enough—customers, users, spend, etc.?


2. Urgent: Is the problem urgent to your users/customers—will they be interested in a new offering, change their way of solving this problem today?


3. Valuable: Are people will

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