Identifying demand in your market

How to Validate Demand Before You Waste a Year Building the Wrong Thing

Most solo-founders do not fail because they cannot build. They fail because they build something nobody urgently wants.

That is a much more painful problem, because when you are a solo-founder, building feels productive. You can open Cursor, ship features, polish the landing page, tweak the onboarding, add Stripe, add analytics, improve the dashboard, rewrite the homepage, and convince yourself you are making progress.

But if there is no real demand underneath the idea, you are not building a business. You are building a coping mechanism.

This is where a lot of indie hackers get trapped. They spend months or years building something that sounds useful in theory, but there is no painful, urgent, already-existing demand for it in the market. Then they launch and nobody cares. Not because the product is bad. Not because the design is poor. Not because the tech stack is wrong. But because the market was never pulling for it in the first place.

Sam Ovens has spoken about this idea repeatedly: demand is not something you magically create. Demand already exists in the market. Your job is to find it, understand it, and channel it towards your product or service. That idea comes from Eugene Schwartz’s classic copywriting book Breakthrough Advertising, where Schwartz argues that copy cannot create desire; it can only channel existing desires already present in the market.

That distinction matters. You are not trying to validate whether people think your idea is “cool”. You are not even trying to validate price yet. Price comes later. The first question is simpler: does this person already have this problem, already want this result, and already demonstrate behaviour that suggests they are trying to solve it?

If the answer is no, stop. Do not build. Do not “educate the market”. Do not convince yourself that “people just don’t know they need it yet”. That is how you lose a year.

The goal at this stage is not to prove that your exact product should exist. The goal is to prove that the demand already exists. Only then should you start thinking about offer, pricing, positioning, features, fulfilment, sales process, or product.

The Demand Validation Checklist

Before building anything serious, I would want to confirm the following:

  1. The person is clearly defined.
  2. The desire is clearly defined.
  3. The person is accessible.
  4. The person has money.
  5. The problem is painful and urgent.
  6. The person is already trying to solve the problem.
  7. The person has KPIs, targets, responsibilities, or business outcomes your product or service can directly support.
  8. Their manager, founder, or leadership team would understand why the problem matters.
  9. Existing solutions already make money.
  10. Existing solutions are imperfect.
  11. You can explain the problem in the customer’s own words.
  12. You can reach 20–50 of these people without heroic effort.
  13. You can get them to engage in a conversation.
  14. You can identify a clear wedge for your product or service.
  15. The market has signs of growth or durable demand.
  16. You have some advantage in serving this audience.

Nick Kozmin’s product-market fit criteria are a useful starting point here. In a PMF checklist attributed to him, the key questions include: is the person and desire clearly defined, can you access the person, does the person have money, is the problem painful and urgent, and is your solution the best or only option for that defined person?

That is brutally simple, which is why it is useful. Most founders cannot answer those questions clearly. They say things like, “It’s for small businesses.” That is not a market. Or they say, “It helps people save time.” That is not a painful desire. Or they say, “It’s for creators.” Which creators? Fitness creators? Accountants with LinkedIn audiences? Women selling digital products on Instagram? YouTubers with 50k subscribers? Coaches doing £20k/month? Broke beginners with 700 followers?

Each of those is a different market. Different pain. Different buying power. Different urgency. Different sales process. Different product. If you cannot clearly define the person and the desire, you do not have demand validation. You have a vague idea.

Step 1: Define the Person and the Desire

Start with the person, not the product, not the features, and not the app.

You want to be able to write a sentence like this:

“I help [specific person] who already wants [specific outcome] because they are struggling with [specific painful problem].”

Examples:

“I help small accounting firm owners with 5–30 staff who want to increase fees from legacy clients without damaging relationships.”

“I help solo consultants who get leads from LinkedIn but lose track of follow-ups and need a lightweight CRM that actually fits how they sell.”

“I help course creators with an audience but low sales who want to turn attention into a simple funnel without stitching together five tools.”

A bad version would be: “I help businesses grow.” Too broad. Another bad version would be: “I help creators monetize.” Still too broad.

A better version would be: “I help fitness creators with 10k–100k followers package their knowledge into a £49–£199 digital product and sell it through a simple link-in-bio funnel.” Now we can test something.

The first demand signal is clarity. Can you clearly identify who the person is and what they already want? Not what they should want. Not what you think would be good for them. What they already want.

This connects directly to Schwartz’s point. You are not trying to create desire. You are looking for the desire that already exists and positioning your product as the vehicle to satisfy it.

A useful test is whether you can find people publicly complaining about this problem. Can you find Reddit posts, Facebook group questions, LinkedIn posts, YouTube comments, podcast discussions, reviews, forum threads, or tweets where people describe the pain without being prompted? If yes, that is useful. If no, be careful. Silence does not always mean there is no demand, but it should make you suspicious.

Step 2: Confirm the Problem Is Painful, Not Merely Interesting

A lot of products solve problems that are technically real but commercially weak. People may agree the problem exists. They may even say your product is a good idea. But they still will not buy.

Why? Because the pain is not strong enough.

Alex Hormozi talks about choosing a “starving crowd”. In summaries of $100M Offers, his market selection criteria are usually described as: massive pain, purchasing power, easy to target, and growing.

That is a strong filter. A starving crowd does not need to be educated that they are hungry. They are already looking for food. That is what you want.

You want people already trying to solve the problem, not people who politely agree your idea makes sense. There is a big difference between, “Yeah, that would be useful,” and, “I’ve been trying to fix this for months. I’ve paid for three tools. None of them quite work. I need this sorted.”

The second person has demand. The first person is just being nice.

To test pain, ask:

  • What happens if they do nothing?
  • Does the problem cost them money?
  • Does it cost them time?
  • Does it create embarrassment?
  • Does it create operational chaos?
  • Does it block a desired outcome?
  • Does it create risk?
  • Does it make them feel behind competitors?
  • Is it tied to health, wealth, relationships, status, security, or convenience?
  • Does it affect a KPI, target, or responsibility they are already measured against?

That last point is easy to overlook. Some personas have KPIs built into their job role. A Head of Sales might be measured on pipeline, conversion rate, revenue, sales cycle length, or activity levels. A Customer Success Manager might be measured on churn, renewals, onboarding time, support volume, or expansion revenue. An Operations Manager might be measured on turnaround time, utilisation, margins, staff capacity, or error rates.

If your product or service helps the person improve a KPI they are already accountable for, the demand is easier to understand. You are no longer asking them to care about a new category. You are showing them a better way to achieve something they already need to deliver.

This also makes internal prioritisation easier. If the user can say to their manager, “This will help us reduce onboarding time,” “This will help us increase booked calls,” or “This will help us recover underpriced client fees,” the product becomes much easier to justify than something vague that merely “saves time”.

Hormozi often frames strong markets around pain and purchasing power. A market with pain but no money is hard. A market with money but no pain is slow. You want both.

This is why “nice to have” SaaS is so dangerous. People will compliment it. They will sign up for the free plan. They will tell you they like the interface. Then they will never pay.

Demand validation is not about compliments. It is about evidence of pain.

Step 3: Check Whether They Are Already Spending Money

This is one of the fastest ways to avoid delusion. If people are already spending money to solve the problem, demand probably exists.

That does not mean your product will work. But it means the market is real.

Look for:

  • Existing SaaS tools
  • Agencies
  • Consultants
  • Courses
  • Templates
  • Coaches
  • Done-for-you services
  • Marketplaces
  • Paid communities
  • Books
  • Workshops
  • Paid newsletters
  • Internal hires
  • Freelancers

For example, if accounting firms are already paying consultants to fix workflow problems, buying Karbon, hiring ops managers, and attending webinars on process improvement, there is demand around operational efficiency.

If creators are already buying funnel courses, email tools, link-in-bio tools, checkout platforms, and coaching programmes, there is demand around monetisation.

If people are not spending anything, you need to understand why. There are a few possibilities. The problem may not be painful enough. The audience may have no money. The market may be immature. The problem may be real but not commercially viable. The buying trigger may not have been identified. Or the current solutions may be hidden, manual, or internal.

Do not immediately assume you have discovered a blue ocean. Most “blue oceans” are just empty ponds.

As a solo-founder, competition is not automatically bad. Competition is often proof. The question is not, “Has anyone built this before?” The better question is, “Are people already spending money to get this outcome, and can I serve a specific segment better?”

That is a much safer starting point.

Step 4: Confirm the Person Is Easy to Access

This is where a lot of good ideas die. You may find a painful problem. You may find people with money. But if you cannot reach them, you do not have a practical solo-founder opportunity.

Nick Kozmin’s checklist specifically includes whether you can access the person. Hormozi’s market criteria also include whether the market is easy to target. This is not a minor detail. It is central.

A market you cannot reach is not useful to you yet. You need to know where these people already gather.

Ask:

  • Are they on LinkedIn?
  • Are they in Facebook groups?
  • Are they on Reddit?
  • Are they searching Google?
  • Are they following specific YouTube channels?
  • Are they attending events?
  • Are they on industry mailing lists?
  • Do they listen to specific podcasts?
  • Can you scrape or manually build a list?
  • Can you identify them by job title?
  • Can you identify them by the KPI or target they are responsible for?
  • Can you run ads to them?
  • Can you partner with someone who already has access?

For a solo-founder, this matters more than people admit. You do not have a sales team. You do not have a brand. You do not have a £50k/month ad budget. You need a market where you can realistically get conversations.

A simple test is whether you can make a list of 100 specific people or companies who might have the problem. Not an abstract audience. An actual list. Names. Websites. LinkedIn profiles. Emails. Communities.

If you cannot make that list, you probably do not understand the market well enough yet.

Step 5: Look for Active Demand, Not Theoretical Demand

Theoretical demand sounds like this: “Small businesses need better financial reporting.” Maybe.

Active demand sounds like this: “Small business owners are searching ‘how to improve cash flow’, hiring bookkeepers, asking accountants for monthly reports, buying forecasting templates, and complaining that they don’t understand their numbers.” That is different.

You want active demand.

Evidence includes:

  • Search volume
  • Paid ads from competitors
  • High-engagement posts about the problem
  • People asking for recommendations
  • Negative reviews of existing products
  • Agencies selling the service
  • Consultants specialising in the problem
  • Templates with lots of sales
  • Courses on the topic
  • Job postings for internal roles solving the issue
  • Communities discussing the pain regularly
  • Podcasts and newsletters covering it
  • Founders manually hacking together solutions
  • People discussing the KPI your product improves

This is where you become an intelligence analyst. Do not just ask, “Would people want this?” Look at what they already do.

Behaviour beats opinion. A person saying “I would use this” means very little. A person spending £300/month on a messy workaround means a lot. A person hiring an assistant to manually solve the problem means a lot. A person complaining about three existing tools means a lot. A person searching for alternatives means a lot.

Demand is visible if you know where to look.

Step 6: Interview the Market Without Pitching

Once you have signs of demand, speak to people. But do not pitch.

This is where founders ruin the research. They get on a call and start explaining the idea. The other person tries to be helpful. They say it sounds interesting. The founder hears validation. Then they build for six months.

That is not research. That is theatre.

The goal of the conversation is to understand the customer’s world before your solution enters the conversation.

Ask questions like:

  • What are you currently trying to improve?
  • What is frustrating about the current process?
  • How are you solving it today?
  • What have you already tried?
  • What did you pay for?
  • What did not work?
  • What happens if this does not get fixed?
  • How often does this problem happen?
  • Who else is involved?
  • When does this become urgent?
  • What would a perfect solution allow you to do?
  • How do you currently decide what tools or services to buy?
  • What would make this a priority now rather than later?
  • Are you personally measured on this?
  • Does this affect any KPIs, targets, or responsibilities in your role?
  • If this improved, who else in the company would care?
  • What would your manager need to see to prioritise fixing this?

The key is to listen for specifics.

A bad signal is: “Yeah, it’s definitely a problem.”

A good signal is: “We had this happen last month. It cost us two days. I had to get Sarah to manually export the data, clean it in Excel, and send it to the partner. We’ve tried three different tools and none of them quite fit.”

An even better signal is: “This affects one of my targets. I’m measured on reducing onboarding time, and this is one of the reasons clients take too long to get live.”

Now you have something. You have language. You have pain. You have process. You have urgency. You have a potential wedge. And if the problem maps to a KPI, you may also have a much clearer business case.

Step 7: Capture the Customer’s Exact Language

This is underrated. The market will give you the copy if you listen properly.

Do not describe the problem in founder language. Describe it in customer language.

Founder language:

“AI-powered client communication workflow optimisation.”

Customer language:

“I keep forgetting to follow up with leads after discovery calls.”

Founder language:

“Centralised knowledge management system.”

Customer language:

“I’m sick of answering the same staff questions over and over again.”

Founder language:

“Automated revenue recovery system.”

Customer language:

“We have old clients who are underpaying and we don’t know how to raise their fees without annoying them.”

The customer’s words are evidence of demand. They show how the problem exists in their mind. This matters because demand does not attach itself to your technical description. It attaches to the customer’s existing desire.

Again, this is the Eugene Schwartz point: you are not creating desire from scratch; you are focusing existing desire onto a product.

If your landing page uses language nobody in the market uses, that is usually a bad sign.

Step 8: Score the Market Before You Score the Idea

Before deciding whether your idea is good, score the market.

Use this simple 1–5 scale.

1. Clear Person

Can you clearly define the exact person?

1 = “Small businesses”

3 = “Accounting firms”

5 = “UK accounting firm owners with 5–30 staff using Karbon or similar workflow tools”

2. Clear Desire

Do they clearly want a specific outcome?

1 = “Be more productive”

3 = “Improve client management”

5 = “Increase fees from underpriced legacy clients without damaging relationships”

3. Pain

Is the problem painful?

1 = Mild annoyance

3 = Operational frustration

5 = Costs money, creates risk, blocks growth, or causes embarrassment

4. Urgency

Why now?

1 = Someday problem

3 = Quarterly annoyance

5 = Triggered by a deadline, compliance change, lost revenue, churn, or immediate operational pressure

5. Purchasing Power

Can they pay?

1 = Broke audience

3 = Some budget

5 = Already spending money on tools, staff, consultants, or services

6. Access

Can you reach them?

1 = No idea where they are

3 = Some communities or lists

5 = Clear channels, direct outreach, search intent, ads, partnerships, or existing network

7. Existing Spend

Are people already paying for alternatives?

1 = No visible spend

3 = Some indirect spend

5 = Obvious competitors, agencies, consultants, software, courses, or manual labour

8. Existing Dissatisfaction

Are current solutions flawed?

1 = Current options seem fine

3 = Some complaints

5 = Repeated complaints, workarounds, switching behaviour, or “I wish X did Y” comments

9. KPI Alignment

Does the problem connect to something the persona is already measured on?

1 = No obvious KPI or internal priority

3 = Loosely connected to a departmental goal

5 = Directly improves a KPI, target, revenue goal, cost reduction goal, compliance requirement, or manager-level priority

10. Growth or Durability

Is the market growing or reliably durable?

1 = Fad or unclear

3 = Stable

5 = Growing, regulation-driven, platform-driven, or tied to permanent human/business needs

11. Founder Advantage

Do you have an edge?

1 = No insight, no access, no credibility

3 = Some experience

5 = Strong domain knowledge, network, distribution, credibility, or personal pain

Score out of 55.

My rough interpretation:

  • 0–22: Do not build.
  • 23–33: Research more.
  • 34–44: Promising, but narrow the segment.
  • 45–55: Strong demand signal. Worth testing with an offer.

This does not prove the business will work. But it will stop you from building into a void.

Step 9: Validate With a Manual Offer Before Building Software

Once you believe demand exists, resist the urge to build the product. This is the hard part.

Most founders use software as procrastination. A better move is to create a manual version of the outcome.

Examples:

  • Sell a workshop.
  • Sell a consulting package.
  • Sell a spreadsheet.
  • Sell a template pack.
  • Sell a done-for-you service.
  • Run a paid pilot.
  • Build a concierge MVP.
  • Offer to solve the problem manually for five people.

This lets you test whether the demand turns into action. At this stage, you are still not necessarily validating the final price or scalable product. You are validating whether the pain is strong enough that people will engage seriously.

The question becomes: “Will someone take a meaningful step to solve this?”

A meaningful step could be paying you, booking a call, sending data, inviting their team, filling out a detailed form, introducing you to the decision-maker, giving access to their current process, spending an hour showing you the problem, or agreeing to a pilot.

Do not overvalue email signups. Do not overvalue likes. Do not overvalue “this looks interesting”. The closer the action is to money, time, or operational commitment, the stronger the signal.

Step 10: Watch for the Dangerous False Positives

There are a few traps that look like demand but are not.

False Positive 1: People Compliment the Idea

People are polite, especially if they know you. A compliment is not demand.

False Positive 2: People Say They Would Pay

Ignore hypothetical payment. Actual payment matters. At minimum, look for existing spend on alternatives.

False Positive 3: People Sign Up for a Free Waitlist

A waitlist is weak evidence unless the audience is very targeted and the signup intent is strong. A list of 500 random people is less useful than 10 qualified prospects asking when they can start.

False Positive 4: The Problem Exists, But Nobody Owns It

Some problems are real but sit between roles. Everyone agrees it is annoying. Nobody has budget. Nobody is responsible. Nobody buys. Dangerous.

False Positive 5: The Market Is Huge

A huge market is not automatically good. “Healthcare” is huge. “Education” is huge. “Creators” is huge. That does not help you. You need a reachable wedge.

False Positive 6: You Personally Want It

Founder pain is useful, but it is not enough. You still need to confirm that other people have the same pain, describe it similarly, and are already trying to solve it.

False Positive 7: The User Likes It, But Their Manager Would Never Prioritise It

This is especially important in B2B. A persona may personally like your product, but if it does not connect to a KPI, budget, risk, revenue, cost reduction, or leadership priority, it may never make it through the company. The user can understand the product, but the manager controls the priority.

This is why KPI alignment matters. If the user can connect your product to the thing they are already measured on, they have a reason to champion it internally. If they cannot, your product risks becoming another nice idea that dies in a Slack thread.

Step 11: Look for the Wedge

Once demand is confirmed, then you can ask: “Where are existing solutions failing?”

This is where your product starts to take shape.

Your wedge might be:

  • Simpler
  • Faster
  • More specific
  • Cheaper
  • More premium
  • Done-for-you instead of DIY
  • Built for a niche
  • Better integrated
  • Better onboarding
  • Better reporting
  • Better compliance
  • Better templates
  • Better workflow
  • Better status
  • Better outcome guarantee
  • Better alignment with the persona’s KPIs

But do not invent the wedge in your head. Pull it from the research.

If people say, “The tool is powerful but too complicated,” your wedge might be simplicity. If they say, “I don’t want another tool; I want someone to set this up,” your wedge might be done-for-you implementation. If they say, “Generic templates don’t work for my industry,” your wedge might be vertical-specific templates. If they say, “I already have the data but don’t know what to do with it,” your wedge might be interpretation, reporting, or decision support.

If the persona says, “I’m measured on booked meetings, but I waste hours chasing people manually,” your wedge might be directly improving booked calls. If they say, “My manager only cares about reducing onboarding time,” your wedge might be shortening time-to-value. If they say, “The partners only care about recovering fees from underpriced clients,” your wedge might be revenue recovery.

This is how you avoid building random features. The market tells you where the gap is.

Step 12: Separate Demand Validation From Price Validation

This is important. At this stage, you are not necessarily trying to validate the final price. You are validating that the problem-solution space is real.

Pricing is a later test.

Demand validation asks: “Does this group already want this outcome?”

Price validation asks: “Will this group pay this amount, in this format, for this specific offer?”

Those are related but separate. A market can have demand, but your offer can still be wrong. A market can have demand, but your pricing can still be wrong. A market can have demand, but your distribution can still be wrong.

So do not overreach. The first milestone is not, “I have a scalable SaaS business.” The first milestone is, “I have found a specific group of people with a painful, urgent, already-existing desire, and I can reach them.”

That is enough to move to the next stage.

A Practical 7-Day Demand Validation Sprint

Here is what I would do in one week.

Day 1: Define the Market

Write down the person, pain, desired outcome, current alternatives, where they gather, why now, why you, and what KPIs or business outcomes the problem might affect.

Create 3–5 possible customer segments. Do not pick “creators” or “small businesses”. Force specificity.

Day 2: Competitor and Alternative Research

Find 10 direct competitors, 10 indirect competitors, 10 agencies or consultants, 10 products/templates/courses, and 20 reviews or complaints.

You are looking for existing spend and dissatisfaction.

Day 3: Public Pain Research

Search Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube comments, Facebook groups, forums, review sites, and Google.

Collect 50 pieces of customer language. Not your interpretation. Their words.

Day 4: Build a Prospect List

Create a list of 100 people or companies who fit the profile.

If you can, include their job title, likely responsibilities, and the KPIs they may be accountable for. This will make your outreach sharper and your interviews more useful.

If you cannot do this, the market may not be accessible enough.

Day 5: Send 30 Research Messages

Do not pitch. Ask for insight.

Example:

“I’m researching how [specific person] currently handles [specific problem]. I noticed you seem close to this world. Would you be open to sharing how you currently deal with it? Not selling anything — just trying to understand the problem properly.”

You are looking for conversations.

Day 6: Run 5–10 Calls

Ask about their current process, previous attempts, existing spend, urgency, consequences, and whether the problem connects to their KPIs or internal targets.

Do not pitch until the end. If relevant, you can say: “I’m considering building something around this. Based on what we discussed, would this be worth exploring further if it solved [specific pain]?” Then shut up.

Day 7: Score the Market

Use the 55-point scorecard.

Then decide whether to kill the idea, narrow it, research more, test a manual offer, or build a small MVP.

Most ideas should not survive this process. That is the point. You are not trying to protect your idea. You are trying to protect your time.

What Enough Demand Looks Like

You probably have enough demand to continue if you can clearly define the person, clearly define the desire, find public evidence of pain, see that people are already spending money to solve it, identify visible gaps in existing solutions, reach the audience, get people to agree to calls, and hear specific, emotional, detailed problem language. You also want the problem to have urgency or a trigger event, and you want to be able to identify a wedge before testing a manual version.

You have an even stronger signal if the problem connects to a KPI, target, or internal business priority. That means the person is not merely interested in the product. They may already be accountable for the outcome your product improves.

You probably do not have enough demand if the audience is vague, the pain is mild, nobody is spending money, you cannot find the people, people compliment the idea but avoid calls, the problem has no deadline or consequence, you cannot explain why now, you need to “educate the market”, your main evidence is that you personally think it should exist, or the persona likes the idea but cannot explain why their manager would care.

That last one is lethal. The market does not care what should exist. It cares what it already wants. In a business context, it also cares what gets prioritised.

Final Thought

As a solo-founder, your biggest enemy is not competition. It is isolation.

You can sit alone and convince yourself of almost anything. You can build a product, write the landing page, create the logo, set up Stripe, and imagine a market that does not actually exist.

The antidote is demand validation. Not asking people if they like your idea. Not collecting fake praise. Not building a waitlist of people who will never buy.

Real demand validation means finding an existing painful desire in the market and proving that a reachable group of people are already trying to solve it.

Sam Ovens’ point, borrowed from the great direct response tradition, is the one to remember: you do not create demand. You channel it.

Eugene Schwartz said the same thing in Breakthrough Advertising: the desire comes from the market, not the copy. The marketer’s job is to direct that existing desire toward the product.

That should be a relief. You do not need to invent demand from nothing. You need to become good at finding where demand already exists.

Then build there.

References

  • Sam Ovens has frequently discussed the importance of finding existing market demand rather than trying to create demand from scratch.
  • Eugene Schwartz, Breakthrough Advertising — the core idea that copy does not create desire, but channels existing desire.
  • Alex Hormozi, $100M Offers — especially the emphasis on choosing a market with pain, purchasing power, ease of targeting, and growth.
  • Nick Kozmin — product-market fit criteria around clearly defining the person, desire, access, money, pain, urgency, and whether your solution is the best option for that person.

 

Further reading & resources

Next: Creating & developing your personas