“I thought all right let's talk to everybody let's just talk to everybody see what see what's out there and I did and I talked to a ton of just like incredibly nice people I would talk to the CEOs and they were like hey man I'd love to have you come work here you have you've got it though if you want to go out on your own you've got it and I would be your first client”

Validate by talking to everybody in parallel, not one at a time

Aaron ran parallel conversations with as many potential employers and clients as possible in a compressed window. The signal that emerged from dozens of simultaneous calls — multiple CEOs offering to be the first client if he went solo — was clearer than any single conversation could have surfaced.