This is a cross-post — the original (and any updates) live at broke2builtai.com.
The usual way a SaaS idea dies is after months of building — when one week of checking would have killed it for free. That order is backwards, and fixing it costs nothing. Validation isn't a budget problem — every tool you need has a free tier. It's a courage problem: you have to show the idea to strangers before it's real, and accept what they do (not what they say) as the verdict.
Here's the whole playbook at $0, in the order I'd run it.
What validation actually means
Validation is evidence that strangers want the thing enough to give you something: an email, a slot on their calendar, or money. Not your friends. Not people being polite. Strangers, giving something up.
