Happy Friday,

Years ago, when I first started to attend conferences, the hot topic was the Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Most everything that was in his book has now become a common language and common knowledge, but rare practice.

For the record, there are a number of issues I have with the book and his advice, but that's a different topic.

One of the concepts put into practice from that method is how you test and validate elements of your product. Within that testing is the idea that you should, as a part of your tests, go through an exchange of currency.

Let me give you an example. You have a new product idea and need to validate it quickly. You build a landing page for it with the core problem statement there. There is a choice here about what measure to use when you validate. One thought is to measure the visits your page gets. Another is to measure email sign-ups.

The visit to a page would be considered less useful than an email sign-up in this case because the email sign-up is an exchange of currency. Someone had to stop and give you their email address. This is the currency exchange element of validating a product.

As you validate more parts of your product, the theory holds that eventually, you'll know that you have a product people want and will pay for. Now you can do the final currency exchange—let them buy it.

Before it's built.

When I work with clients and tell them that pre-selling is the final act of validating the product, they often get visibly upset. They think I'm insane for suggesting you can sell something that doesn't exist.

Then I remind them that Tesla did it with the Model 3. Kickstarter is a whole platform that seems to be doing fine with the premise that it lets you buy products that don't exist.

The reality that I've seen over and over is that people will pay for something that doesn't exist because the solution will solve a real problem for them, and that is worth it.

So if you want to prove your product is worth it, validate it to the point people will pay you for it before it exists.

Sincerely,

Ryan