It might seem like the most obvious step of all, but you'd be amazed how many people skip it. No matter how confident you are in your product idea, you first need to figure out whether the problem is a real one that needs solving.

To do this, your best option is to talk to potential users directly. Our focus here is on getting qualitative validation of the product idea. The goal is to ask open-ended questions and listen and learn from user responses.

First, we start with a small number of properly sampled, representative users and verify that the problem exists for them. Then, we optimise and verify this later on with more users and at greater scale.

The learning you take from these interviews will give you the confidence you need to move your idea forward. Or they'll teach you that you need to pivot your idea as you learn more about the real underlying problems.

The techniques described below are meant to be used individually, but they form a suite of methods that can provide a better picture of the problem you're trying to validate.