Finalize Your Opportunity Only After You Have “Proof” from Customers

You have succinctly articulated the concept that, Opportunities are “discovered” and “finalized” by constantly trying to get feedback and “proof” from potential customers. Your own ideas won’t do it. Neither will your passion for one particular concept. Building a “completed” product may leave you a pauper.

Four concepts that are in support with your post are:

1. Sort Ideas into Key Ideas: Even before you sketch out your MVP, and before you test it, you have several ideas related to what you are trying to do. Those several ideas need to be sorted into a few Key ideas. A simple simple but priceless question to do that is in Ideas-are-dime-a-dozen-opportunities-are-priceless
2. Don’t Rely on Experts: Often the tendency is to ask experts to vet your idea. This can be dangerous. Experts are often wrong because they are married to the existing solutions. See Experts-screw-up-so-why-trust-a-mentor
3. Find A Mentor: It helps to have a mentor who has been on the same path as you and is willing to act as a supportive Dutch Uncle to help you stay on the straight and narrow path of building a MVP. See Mentor-carefrontations-the-dutch-uncle-approach
4. Postpone Raising External Money: as long as Possible and preferably till a MVP. The temptation is to get external validation of your idea through some external fund raising. This will divert attention from getting a MVP done fast and cheap. If you do get the money, is it the right kind of partner? See Entrepreneurs-are-you-marrying-a-partner-or-a-rapist