Note: I've put together a bonus resource at the email list end of this article that will help you pre-sell and validate your product. So why do so many startups and products fail? A common reason is that companies don't validate their products before launching them. What is product validation? Product validation is about determining if your product solves a problem that someone is willing to pay for. I want to emphasize that true product validation only comes when you get a sale. You can validate market demand by getting:email subscribers with a coming soon landing page tons of traffic with a “viral” post people to click on an ad however, until you have cash on hand, you have not validated your product. Yes, that means you can validate a product without pre-selling it. Preselling simply helps you reduce your risk by:test your messaging to see if it resonates with customers test your pricing to see if it falls within a customer's willingness to pay (wtp) rangeget money email list before creating a product no one wants but a product isn't fully validated until someone pays you. There are four steps I need to take to go from idea to prepaid customer:identify the main problem your customers are facing prepare a pre-sales landing page that explains your offer get feedback Find objections and measure willingness to email list pay answer questions, overcome objections and pre-sell your productif you follow these four steps correctly, you will have prepaid customers. Note: I am writing this article assuming that you have an email list. You don't need a mailing list to validate your product. Any list of relevant people will do. If you don't have a list, I recommend creating a mailing list of 500 people before you start. This will make it easier to find enough relevant customers. Product validation step 1: identify the core problem your customers are facing"Headaches, problems, desires - human needs - these are your markets!