Test the idea before it becomes your personality

The dangerous stage of an idea is not the beginning. It is the point where you have described it to enough people that abandoning it would be embarrassing.

Test before that.

A test is something that can produce a no

Most “validation” isn’t. Asking friends if it sounds good is not a test. Building a landing page and admiring the traffic is not a test. Anything that cannot disappoint you is research theatre.

Real ones are uncomfortable: ask someone to pay now, for a version that barely exists. Sell it before it works. Offer it to five people who are not obliged to be kind to you.

Test the life, not only the business

This is the part almost nobody does. A viable idea can produce a life you do not want — the travel, the hours, the type of client, the version of you it needs on a Tuesday.

So run a week of it. Do the actual work, not the strategy about the work. Notice whether you look forward to Monday or find reasons to reschedule.

Don’t build a business you don’t want to live inside.