Video by sammrchant

There is one massive difference between first-time founders and experienced founders when they launch a business. Inexperienced founders build a solution for a problem that they have experienced and they keep all of their ideas internal. They don't go out to customers at all. Whereas experienced founders spend a ridiculous amount of time with their customers

understanding how they experience the problem, would they pay for a solution, have they ever tried to solve it themselves. All of these little details are what separates winners and losers when it comes to the very early stages of building a startup. So whenever I'm validating an idea, I'm looking to answer three clear questions. The first question is, how have you tried to solve

this problem before? Have you tried to hack together at all? Have you tried any competitor products? This gives you an idea of how intense the pain is that this person is experiencing. If they've never tried to solve this problem before, it's often very unlikely that they actually care about it. The second question is, if I solve this problem for you, what would you be

able to do. Whether it's save more time, create new revenue, build better relationships, could be anything. But this becomes the key metric in how you track whether your product is adding value or not. The last question is one that often get people get wrong is they say, will you pay for this product? No. The question is pay for this product. You put the product in front of people

and if they don't pay for it, you don't build it. So before you build anything or before you go speaking to investors, answer these three questions and do it honestly. I promise you, if you are honest with yourself, you will save yourself so much time, so much money, and probably a lot of embarrassment if you don't go through this process.