Test demand before you build with the Demand Testing and Interviewing Guide

Most early ideas fail for a simple reason: the team believed what people said instead of watching what they did. A friendly “I’d definitely use that” costs the speaker nothing. A second meeting, an introduction to their boss or a paid pilot does.

The guide walks you through a week of work, from a hypothesis that can fail to a decision you can defend:

• The evidence ladder. Which signals deserve trust, from compliments to money.
• A hypothesis and a decision rule, written before you look at any result.
• Finding the right people and inviting them without pitching.
• A minute-by-minute problem and solution interview, with a sample opening to read aloud.
• Questions that make a polite lie hard, and how to handle compliments, fluff and stalls.
• How to ask for a commitment in time, reputation or money.
• Ten demand tests compared, from the Validation Patterns cards.
• How to run a test honestly, read the result and choose between continuing, revising and stopping.

It pairs with the free Demand Test Worksheet, and with the Experiment Sheet and Learning Sheet.

For the underlying methods, see Validate the problem, Validate the market and Validate willingness to pay, or the Customer Interview card in Discovery Patterns.