Don't treat validation as a one-off task before development. The most successful products maintain a constant feedback loop with users to adapt to changing needs, regulations, and tastes. The worst mistake is to stop listening after the initial launch, as businesses that fail to adapt ultimately fail.
The goal of early validation is not to confirm your genius, but to risk being proven wrong before committing resources. Negative feedback is a valuable outcome that prevents building the wrong product. It often reveals that the real opportunity is "a degree to the left" of the original idea.
Ramli John launched his paid beta program after writing only two of twenty chapters. This allowed him to gather market feedback exceptionally early, co-create the product with his most dedicated users, and pivot based on their input, significantly de-risking the final launch.
Don't just collect feedback from all users equally. Identify and listen closely to the few "visionary users" who intuitively grasp what's next. Their detailed feedback can serve as a powerful validation and even a blueprint for your long-term product strategy.
Large companies often identify an opportunity, create a solution based on an unproven assumption, and ship it without validating market demand. This leads to costly failures when the product doesn't solve a real user need, wasting millions of dollars and significant time.
Unlike traditional software where PMF is a stable milestone, in the rapidly evolving AI space, it's a "treadmill." Customer expectations and technological capabilities shift weekly, forcing even nine-figure revenue companies to constantly re-validate and recapture their market fit to survive.
Products are no longer 'done' upon shipping. They are dynamic systems that continuously evolve based on data inputs and feedback loops. This requires a shift in mindset from building a finished object to nurturing a living, breathing system with its own 'metabolism of data'.
Gamma compresses the product development cycle into a single day. They generate an idea in the morning, build a functional prototype, and use platforms like Voice Panel to run user research studies in the afternoon, yielding actionable feedback by evening. This operationalizes rapid, pre-build validation.