“I set up a pre-sale… 50 licenses at kind of an absurdly low price… pretty quickly it sold out within 2 or 3 days, and I made my first $20,000 before the idea was even built.”

Pre-sell 50 lifetime licenses — collect $20K before writing a line of code

Real validation isn't asking friends or surveying willingness-to-pay — it's collecting money. A tiered pre-sale of 50 lifetime licenses with a money-back guarantee sold out in 2-3 days and netted $20K before any code was written, proving demand and funding the build.