And Avoid Wasting Months on Something Nobody Wants
I've watched too many creators spend months building courses, ebooks, and templates that absolutely nobody buys… including myself 🙈
The problem isn't that we can't create good products. The problem is they're building products based on what we think people want instead of what people actually want.
Validation isn't asking your audience "would you buy this?" (spoiler alert: they'll lie, not on purpose, but they will). You have to get people to show you they want something through their actual behavior.
Today I'm going to walk you through the exact framework I use to validate digital product ideas before I build them. This process has saved me from countless flops and even helped me to make a very recent decision to NOT launch my online community.
Most Product Validation Fails Because…
Let me guess how you've been "validating" ideas:
- Posted polls on social media asking what people want
- Asked your email list what they'd like to learn about
- Looked at what other creators in your niche are selling
- Had a few friends say "yeah, I'd totally buy that!"
All of that feels like validation, but it's not. It's just collecting opinions, and opinions are worth exactly what you pay for them 😉
Real validation happens when people put skin in the game. Money, time, effort (something that costs them more than just clicking a poll option).
The framework I'm about to share tests three key things:
- Demand: Do people actually want this thing?
- Willingness to pay: Will they pay your price for it?
- Market size: Are there enough people who want it to make it worth building?
My Validation Framework
Phase 1: Problem Validation
Before you validate your solution, you need to validate that the problem you're solving actually matters to people. Is this a real problem people are willing to pay to resolve, or just a minor inconvenience they’d only remedy if it was free?
Step 1: Pain Point Audit
Look through your comments, DMs, emails, and community posts from the last 6 months. Create a list of every question, complaint, or request you've gotten. Don't just look for direct asks like "can you make a course about X?" Look for patterns in the problems people describe:
- "I keep trying to [do thing] but I can't figure out [specific part]"
- "I've been struggling with [problem] for months"
- "I wish there was an easier way to [accomplish goal]"
Step 2: Frequency Test
Rank your list by how often each problem comes up. If you're only seeing a problem mentioned once or twice, it's probably not worth building a product around. You want problems that show up at least weekly in your content comments or DMs. The more frequently people mention it, the more urgent it is for them. This doesn’t have to be a one-time hunt - keep a look out for these kinds of comments and note their frequency in a notebook or your business system. That way, when it’s time for a new product, you have a whole list of ideas to work off of.
Step 3: Cost-of-Inaction
For your top 3-5 problems, dig deeper:
- What happens if people don't solve this problem?
- How much time/money/stress does the problem cost them?
- Have they tried to solve it before? What didn't work?
Problems that cost people significant time, money, or emotional energy are the ones they'll pay to solve. Red flags that kill validation can include…
- The problem only affects beginners (limited market size and more time spent coaching)
- People have easy, free solutions available
- It's a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have"
- You're the only one talking about this problem
Phase 2: Solution Validation
Now you test whether your specific solution actually works and if people will pay for it. This testing phase gets missed all the time - and this is where I found that my test failed, so don’t skip this one!
Step 1: Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Test
Don't build the full product. Create the smallest possible version that still solves the core problem:
- Instead of a full course, create a 90-minute workshop
- Instead of a comprehensive template pack, create one really good template
- Instead of a complete system, create a simple framework or checklist
The goal is to test your solution approach with minimal time investment to see if people are interested.
Step 2: Pre-Sale Test
This is where most people chicken out, but it's the most important step: try to sell your MVP before you fully build it. Create a simple sales page that explains:
- The exact problem you're solving
- Your solution approach
- What buyers will get
- Clear outcomes they can expect
- Your price
Then promote it to your audience as a limited beta or early access offer. You’ll be testing for the following:
- Do people click on your sales page?
- Do they read the whole thing?
- Do they actually buy?
- What questions do they ask before buying?
Step 3: Price Sensitivity Test
Try different price points with different groups or time periods:
- Start with your ideal price
- If nobody buys, lower it and test again
- If people buy immediately without hesitation, you might be pricing too low
Don't just test one price and give up. Most creators underprice their first products by 50-80%. Start high and see if you need to go lower (most of the time you don’t).
Phase 2 will be successful if you get:
- At least 10 people willing to pre-purchase your MVP
- Conversion rate of 2-5% from traffic to your sales page
- People asking when they can get access (urgency signals)
Phase 3: Market Size Validation
Now you need to make sure there are enough people with this problem to build a sustainable revenue stream. 10 sales is great, but it might not be worth the long term commitment of a course or community if 10 is all you ever get.
Step 1: Audience Expansion Test
Look beyond your current audience:
- Search social media platforms for people discussing this problem
- Check relevant Facebook groups, Reddit communities, Discord servers
- Look at comments on other creators content in your niche
- Search for related keywords on YouTube, Pinterest, Google
You want to see the same problem discussed across multiple platforms and communities. This will be your signal that it’s a gap in this market.
Step 2: Competition Analysis
Healthy competition is actually a good sign, it means there's a market for your goods. Look for:
- Other creators selling similar solutions
- Their pricing (gives you market benchmarks)
- Their sales pages and marketing (what angles work?)
- Customer reviews and complaints (gaps you can fill)
Red flags:
- Nobody else is solving this problem (this could mean there’s no market)
- Lots of free solutions that work well
- Only big companies with huge teams are addressing it
Step 3: The Keyword Research Reality Check
Use free tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, or Answer the Public to see:
- How many people search for terms related to your problem
- What specific questions they're asking
- Related problems you might not have considered
You want to see consistent search volume (hundreds or thousands of monthly searches) for problem-related keywords.
The Validation Scorecard
After completing all three phases, rate your product idea on each factor (1-5 scale):
Problem Validation:
- How frequently does this problem come up? (1=rarely, 5=daily)
- How costly is it for people to ignore? (1=minor inconvenience, 5=major pain)
- How urgent is the need for a solution? (1=someday, 5=right now)
Solution Validation:
- How many people pre-purchased your MVP? (1=0-2, 5=20+)
- What was your conversion rate? (1=under 1%, 5=over 5%)
- How excited were early customers? (1=meh, 5=begging for more)
Market Size Validation:
- How widespread is discussion of this problem? (1=just your audience, 5=everywhere)
- How much competition exists? (1=none or overwhelming, 5=healthy competition)
- What's the search volume for related terms? (1=minimal, 5=thousands monthly)
Scoring:
- 35+ points: Build this product immediately
- 25-34 points: Promising but needs refinement
- 15-24 points: Risky—consider a different angle
- Under 15 points: Find a different problem to solve
What to Do When Validation Fails
Sometimes your great idea just doesn't validate. That's not failure, that's saving yourself months of wasted work.
→ If the problem validation fails: Look for related problems that come up more frequently or affect more people.
→ If the solution validation fails: Try a different approach to solving the same problem, or test a different price point.
→ If the market size validation fails: Consider whether you can expand the problem definition or target a different audience segment.
You don't have to abandon everything and start over if something fails. Look at what parts of your validation worked:
- If people loved your teaching style but not the topic, try the same format with a different problem
- If the problem resonated but your solution didn't, try a different approach
- If everything worked but the market was too small, see if you can broaden the appeal
My Failed Idea
Early this year, I kept seeing people wishing for a creator based community in my comments and DMs. Instead of immediately building a community and going 100% in on the idea, I worked through this framework.
Problem validation: I found 47 instances of this request across my platforms in just 3 months. Clearly a frequent pain point.
Solution validation: I created a bare-bones circle community and invited a few friends to join for free. Then pre-sold 3 memberships in the first month to test demand.
Market size validation: Found thousands of monthly searches for "content creator community" and saw a ton of competition, mostly charging $20-100/mo for similar products.
The problem was strong, but my solution wasn’t. I tried a few different avenues of marketing, pricing and offers but I quickly realized I didn’t have the energy (or time) to manage an online community full time, so I shut it down.
None of that would have happened if I'd just built what I thought people wanted instead of validating what they actually wanted. It wasn’t a waste of time, though, it helped me realize what I thought was needed, already exists in a high-competition market and I didn’t want to be a competitor. It saved me yearly platform costs, marketing budgets and a ton of time to run it through this test.
And I ended up using this process to realize I needed some other things done in my business - which led me to a new idea that is going through this same process (a blog post for another day 😅).
An Action Plan For You
Pick your top product idea and spend the next 4 weeks running it through this framework.
Week 1: Complete problem validation. Document every instance of this problem in your existing content and community.
Week 2: Create an MVP and build a simple sales page.
Week 3: Pre-sell to your audience and test price sensitivity.
Week 4: Research market size and competition.
At the end of the month, you'll either have a validated product idea ready to build or you'll have saved yourself from a flop. Both outcomes are wins. The creators who build successful digital products aren't the ones with the best ideas, they're the ones who validate their ideas before investing serious time and energy.
Stop guessing what people want and start proving it.