Run six honest tests. (1) Is there a defined buyer with budget? (2) Is the pain frequent and intense, not annoying? (3) Will buyers commit money or time? (4) Do you have a defensible angle (one of the 7 Powers)? (5) Does the unit economics math work at a price they'd pay? (6) Is the timing present-tense, not 'someday'? Pass four of six and keep going. Fail four and walk away. The rest is theatre.
The fast version
Six tests. Pass four to keep going. Fail four to walk away.
| # | Test | What’s strong | What’s weak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Defined buyer | Specific role + budget authority + named (you could write 10 names) | “Founders” or “small businesses” |
| 2 | Real pain | Frequent + intense + costing money or time today | Annoying but tolerable |
| 3 | Behavioral commitment | 3+ pre-orders, signed LOIs, or Gold-tier Fake Door conversions | Email signups + “I’d love that” |
| 4 | Defensible angle | One of the 7 Powers at maturity (counter-positioning is the realistic startup choice) | “Better product” |
| 5 | Unit economics | LTV/CAC > 3 at a price the buyer accepts | Price too low to scale |
| 6 | Why now | Present-tense trend you can verify today | ”Eventually the market will want this” |
Below 4 of 6: don’t write production code. Iterate the weak parts or kill the idea.
Why each test exists
1. Defined buyer. “Anyone who needs X” is the most expensive sentence in startup history. A defined buyer is a person you could write a name and email next to. Without that, every other test runs on imaginary data. The fix: pick the smallest specific segment first; expand later.
2. Real pain. A pain that buyers haven’t tried to solve isn’t real pain to them. They’ve adapted. Pain you can validate: “When you last had this problem, what did you do?” If the answer is “nothing” or “I just deal with it,” the pain is below the action threshold. If the answer is “I built a spreadsheet” or “I paid $X for this thing that didn’t work,” the pain is above it. Real pain has scars.
3. Behavioral commitment. This is the only test that holds up after launch. Stated preference and revealed preference are different species. Surveys, upvotes, and “I’d love that” predict approximately nothing about purchase behavior. Pre-orders, paid deposits, and signed LOIs predict purchase behavior strongly. Pass this test rigorously or accept that everything else is hypothesis.
The Fake Door Test with weighted signal tiers is the cheapest way to run this test. Gold-tier conversions (credit card entered) at >1% of targeted traffic is a strong signal.
4. Defensible angle. Hamilton Helmer’s 7 Powers names the only seven defensible advantages a business can have at maturity. If you can’t pick one with conviction, you’re betting on a fair fight. Fair fights go to whoever has more capital. For startups, the realistic answer is usually counter-positioning: a model the incumbent can’t copy without cannibalizing themselves.
“We move faster” is not a power. It’s a tactic. Tactics get copied.
5. Unit economics. A real buyer + a real pain + behavioral commitment + a defensible angle still doesn’t matter if you make $30 LTV per customer and CAC is $40. The unit-economics test: at the price buyers will accept (from your Van Westendorp band), is LTV/CAC > 3? If no, it’s a hobby business or a pivot.
6. Why now. Markets reward timing as much as quality. The graveyard is full of products that were right but five years early. Your “why now” answer has to point to a present-tense trend you can verify today, not a hypothetical future where everyone realizes they need this. “AI got cheap in 2023” is a present-tense trend. “Eventually crypto will scale” is not.
How long does this take
Two to four weeks of focused work. See the validation timeline question for the per-stage breakdown.
The shortcut version: take a weekend to do tests 1, 4, and 6 honestly (these are mostly thinking work). If you fail 2 of 3, the idea isn’t worth running tests 2, 3, 5 on. Kill it and pick another.
What “good idea” doesn’t mean
A good idea is not necessarily an exciting idea, an elegant idea, or an idea your friends like. It’s an idea where the six tests come back positive: there’s a buyer with money, a pain they’d pay to fix, evidence they’ll pay you to fix it, a way you can win over time, and a moment that’s now.
Three failure modes worth naming:
Trap 1: “Big market” without a specific buyer. “$10B TAM” doesn’t tell you whether anyone will buy from YOU. Pass test 1 first.
Trap 2: “Visionary” with no behavioral evidence. Steve Jobs is the wrong reference class. The base rate is that “visionary” founders ship products no one buys. Pass test 3 or accept the risk.
Trap 3: “Better product” with no defensible angle. Better products lose to worse products with moats every day. Pass test 4 or expect to be crushed by an incumbent’s distribution.
What ShipFit does
ShipFit’s 9-step playbook maps directly to these six tests:
- Stage 1 (Worth Building?) covers test 6
- Stage 2 (Who Pays?) covers test 1
- Stage 3 (What Hurts?) covers test 2
- Stage 4 (How to Win?) covers test 4
- Stage 6 (How to Charge?) covers test 5
- Stage 7 (Will They Pay?) covers test 3
Each stage applies a framework gate that pushes back if your answer is weak. Pass 6 of 9 stages and you have a defensible “this idea is good” verdict. Pass 4-5 and ShipFit suggests pivots before recommending a build. Pass 0-3 and it recommends killing.
Further reading
- The 9-step playbook, the master pillar that operationalizes all six tests.
- Idea validation, the four-method ladder, how to run test 3 (behavioral evidence).
- The 7 Powers framework, how to run test 4 (defensible angle).
- Validation timeline question, how long all six tests realistically take.
Related
The Mom Test
The Mom Test is Rob Fitzpatrick's framework for customer interviews that generate real signal. Not praise. Three rules, applied step-by-step, with examples.
7 Powers
The 7 Powers framework names every defensible advantage a business can have. If you can't pick one for your startup, you're betting on a fair fight.
Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter
The Van Westendorp framework uses 4 questions to surface a defensible price range for any product. Here's how to run it, interpret results, and avoid the cheapest mistakes.
Idea Validation
Most founders confuse idea validation with idea-receiving-encouragement. The two have nothing in common. Here's what real validation looks like, and the four methods that actually produce it.
Market Research
Most founder market research is a TAM slide that nobody believes. The numbers that actually matter are smaller, harder to defend, and tell you whether the market exists for the ten-customer version of your business.
Competitive Analysis
Most early-stage competitive analysis is a 2x2 with your product in the top-right quadrant. The real version is harder, more boring, and tells you whether you can actually win.
Product-Market Fit
The state in which a product satisfies a strong market demand such that demand pulls the product through the company. Coined by Marc Andreessen in 2007. Most rigorous measure: 40%+ of active users would be 'very disappointed' to lose the product (Sean Ellis test).
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell if my idea is good without spending months testing?
What if I love the idea but it fails the tests?
Is there a quick gut-check version?
Are some tests more important than others?
What if my idea passes all six tests but I still feel unsure?
Keep exploring
The 9-step playbook from market verdict to ship-ready spec.
The Mom Test is Rob Fitzpatrick's framework for customer interviews that generate real signal. Not praise. Three rules, applied step-by-step, with examples.
The Van Westendorp framework uses 4 questions to surface a defensible price range for any product. Here's how to run it, interpret results, and avoid the cheapest mistakes.
Most founders confuse idea validation with idea-receiving-encouragement. The two have nothing in common. Here's what real validation looks like, and the four methods that actually produce it.
Most founder market research is a TAM slide that nobody believes. The numbers that actually matter are smaller, harder to defend, and tell you whether the market exists for the ten-customer version of your business.
Does each customer make you money? Or cost you money?
Run nine framework-backed decisions in order before writing code: define the buyer, prove the pain is painful, name the winning angle, scope V1 to the smallest test of the hypothesis, get behavioral evidence (paid pre-orders, signed letters of intent, or credit cards on file from a Fake Door Test), then ship. Most failed startups skipped at least three of those nine. Plan to spend two to four weeks on this. It saves six to nine months of building the wrong thing.
For indie hackers who've wasted months on dead ideas. ShipFit forces 9 decisions before you write a line of code. Proven frameworks, exports to Cursor.
If you want a conversation partner, Buildpad. If you want to stop researching and ship, ShipFit. Both solve different problems for different founders. Don't pick on hype.
Ready to make your next product a success?
9 decisions between your idea and a product worth building.