simongonzalezdc Validate Opportunity
Stress-test a business idea against reality before spending money on it.
What this skill tests (in order)
- The customer exists: who specifically buys this? (name a real person, not a demographic)
- The problem is real: what pain does this solve? How do they solve it today?
- The demand is measurable: how many potential customers are within reach?
- The competition is known: who else serves this customer? What is the honest gap?
- Willingness to pay: what would they pay? (test with a pre-sale, a waitlist, or a pop-up)
- The venue question: where will the evidence actually come from? (a rigorous gate with no admissible path is worse than no gate)
The output
A one-page verdict:
- PROCEED: assumptions are credible enough to plan
- CONDITIONAL: proceed IF [named conditions] are met first
- STOP: the idea does not survive contact with reality, and here is why
Gate design rules
- Floors, not AND-gates: 3-5 metrics with minimum thresholds, not 9 things that must ALL pass
- One ungameable metric: third-party POS receipts, not self-reported interest
- Novelty period excluded: first 14 days do not count toward primary data
- Family/friends do not count: track surname as a % of total (15% or less is healthy)
- The venue question must be answered BEFORE designing the test
What this skill does NOT do
- It does not write a business plan (plan-business)
- It does not size TAM/SAM/SOM (it counts actual walk-bys and real competitors)
- It does not tell you the idea is good (it tells you what evidence supports or contradicts it)