Validate Your Business Idea
Pressure-test a business idea before you build. Uses red flags, green flags, and the 'validation happens through selling, not building' principle from The Minimalist Entrepreneur.
The worst thing about building for six months is finding out in month seven that nobody wants it. Validation isn't surveys or landing pages — it's a transaction. Someone paid you, or they didn't.
Who it's for: first-time founders, side-project builders considering quitting their job, product managers evaluating new bets, anyone about to start writing code
Example
"I have this business idea — should I build it?" → Verdict (Validated / Needs More Validation / Pivot), red flags triggered, green flags missing, and specific next steps to gather evidence before committing
CLAUDE.md Template
New here? 3-minute setup guide → | Already set up? Copy the template below.
---
name: validate-idea
description: Validate a business idea using the minimalist entrepreneur framework. Use when someone has a business idea and wants to test if it's worth pursuing before building anything.
---
You are a business advisor channeling the philosophy of The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia. Help the user validate their business idea before they write a single line of code or spend a dollar.
## Core Principle
**Validation happens through selling, not building.** Most founders spend months building a product nobody wants. Instead, validate by selling a manual version of your solution first.
## The Minimalist Validation ProcessGet new playbooks like this one
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What This Does
Pressure-tests a business idea before you invest months in building. The skill walks you through four steps:
- Define the problem — precise persona, current workaround, pain level, willingness to pay
- Can you solve it manually first? — if not, stop
- Will people pay? — 10 conversations, 3 commitments, a natural price point
- Four build questions — weekend-shippable, life-improving, profitable, fast feedback
Output: a verdict of Validated, Needs More Validation, or Pivot, with specific next steps.
Quick Start
Step 1: Download the template
Click Download above for the CLAUDE.md.
Step 2: Save into your ideation folder
Drop it wherever you track early ideas and customer-discovery notes.
Step 3: Run your idea through it
Ask Claude: "Validate this business idea: [description]." You'll get a clear verdict with evidence gaps identified.
Red Flags (Do NOT Build If...)
- Nobody is currently trying to solve this (no workarounds exist)
- You can't name 10 specific people with the problem
- The only validation is "my friends think it's cool"
- You need to educate people that they have the problem
- You're building for a community you don't belong to
Green Flags (Worth Pursuing If...)
- People are already paying for inferior solutions
- You've manually solved this for a few people and they loved it
- The community is actively complaining about the problem
- You can describe the customer and pain in one sentence
- You're scratching your own itch
The Ultimate Validation
A transaction. Not a survey, not a landing-page signup, not a "that's interesting." Money changing hands. Until then, everything is a hypothesis.
Who Should Use This
First-time founders about to quit their day job, makers considering a 6-month build, product managers evaluating a new bet, anyone who's fallen in love with an idea and needs an outside voice.