FounderA founder whose product has no steady paying customers yet

When people say my idea is good, I want to know whether that is real need, so I do not build for six months on politeness.

Khi người ta nói ý tưởng của tôi hay, tôi muốn biết đó có phải nhu cầu thật không, để không xây suốt sáu tháng cho một sự lịch sự.

Job context

Who: A first-time founder interviewing prospective customers
When: Before the first line of code, and at each expansion
Trigger: Ten positive conversations and nobody asking to buy
Situation: Interviewees want to help, and the cheapest way to help is to praise
Constraints: No product to sell yet, so the money test is unavailable

Interviewees say what you want to hear
High
They read the hoped-for answer in the way the question is framed.
Root cause: The asker has a stake in the answer and the answerer knows it
Cannot tell if the problem hurts enough
High
Everyone agrees it is annoying and few have done anything about it.
Root cause: Annoyance is far cheaper to voice than money is to spend
The interviewee is not the payer
High
In business, the user and the budget holder are almost never the same.
Root cause: The most reachable person is usually the least empowered
The sample is all acquaintances
Medium
Acquaintances are both the most reachable and the most biased.
Root cause: Reaching strangers costs many times more effort
Does not know how many conversations are enough
Medium
There is always one more person to ask, and asking always sounds sensible.
Root cause: With no stopping rule, interviewing becomes a place to hide from deciding

A solution is not the same thing as a product — a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

Structured customer interviews
Behaviour
Asks about the past rather than the future — the only bias reduction that needs no money.
A landing page measuring sign-ups
Product
Measures attention, not willingness to pay.
Take a deposit before the product exists
Behaviour
The only real test, and the one everybody avoids.
Ask friends for speed
Workaround
Founders sample where it is easiest while knowing it is skewed.
Serve the first few by hand
Workaround
Selling handwork before a product exists — validating demand with one's own labour.

The asker has a stake in the answer and the answerer sees it from the first question.
Why existing solutions fail: Every interview method teaches better questions, and none removes the fact that the asker wants a particular answer.
Potential opportunity: Having a disinterested party ask, or replacing the question with a costly request.
The trade measures interest because it is cheap and countable, while what is needed is willingness to pay.
Why existing solutions fail: Sign-ups and praise cost the giver nothing, so they are plentiful, while the one costly signal is money, and asking for it without a product is uncomfortable.
Potential opportunity: A test that costs the respondent something modest — a small deposit, committed time, an introduction.