Hey friends 👋

You know the pattern: you pitch your idea to somebody who loves you, and they tell you it’s amazing. You pitch it to a stranger who’s polite, and they tell you it’s amazing too. Nobody’s lying to hurt you — they’re just doing what humans do. And that’s exactly the problem.

This week we’re airing something a little different: a replay of a talk we gave live for StartupSac and Clean Start’s Power Series, all about customer discovery and validation. It’s us, but it’s also a room full of founders firing off real questions, and a moderator lobbing curveballs at us the whole way through.

We get into the mom test (why even your own mother can’t be trusted for honest feedback), the difference between interest and intent, and the TEAM framework we use to force a real answer out of a maybe. Cameron breaks down the economic buyer problem — the person who loves your product isn’t always the person who signs the check. And we go after the current temptation to just ask ChatGPT if your idea is good, or vibe-code a weekend MVP instead of talking to a human. Neither one saves you from doing the work.

As always, thanks for listening.

—Cameron and JDM

Timestamps

* 00:00 - Introduction

* 03:00 - Problem vs. solution (and the Henry Ford quote everyone gets wrong)

* 09:45 - The mom test

* 33:45 - Qualitative vs. quantitative evidence

* 41:00 - The ladder of evidence and the TEAM framework

* 53:45 - Economic buyers, gatekeepers, and saboteurs

* 1:04:00 - Startup theater, procrastivity, and leading indicators

* 1:12:15 - Why AI can’t do your customer discovery for you

* 1:19:45 - Wrap-up

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