How to validate product ideas before shipping a solution

Product validation is a crucial process for product managers, involving various methods to assess whether a product or feature meets customer needs and addresses pain points. These methods are categorized into low, medium, and high-evidence approaches, each requiring different levels of effort and providing varying degrees of validation. Low-evidence methods, such as prototypes, surveys, and social media interactions, offer quick insights but lack definitive proof, serving as initial inspiration for product direction. Medium-evidence methods, like landing pages and online advertisements, strike a balance between effort and insight, being useful when refining an idea without committing to high-evidence methods. High-evidence methods, including sales/mock sales and crowdfunding, provide strong indicators of a product's potential success but should only be used after conducting initial validation to form a clear product vision. Product validation is essential not only at the early stages but also for new features, as features themselves require validation similar to whole products. While over-validation can be tempting, the ultimate test of a product's success is its market performance, and initial validation should suffice to build confidence in the direction being pursued.