AI made building fast. Which means the new accident is building the wrong thing fast. The most expensive mistake isn't in the code — it's in the direction. (It's leak #1 in the cost breakdown.)
Run these five checks before building. All free, all doable in a day.
1. Are people already searching for this?
Creating new demand is hard even for giant companies. As an individual, you ride demand that already exists.
- Does Google autocomplete suggest related queries?
- Are there specific question-shaped searches — "how to X", "best X", "X cost"?
If there's no search at all, one of two things is true: nobody wants it, or you don't know the words your customers use. If it's the latter, finding their vocabulary is the research.
2. Do competitors exist? (None is a red flag)
Competition is evidence of a market. Check:
- Read competitor reviews for complaints. The complaints are your entry angle.
- If every player is a giant, avoid. If small teams and solo builders are surviving there, good sign.
3. Can you explain it in one sentence?
If "who — in what moment — gets what solved" doesn't fit in a sentence, you have a vibe, not an idea.
Bad: "an AI-powered lifestyle platform" Good: "when a café owner has no time to answer Google reviews, it drafts the replies automatically"
4. Do you know where your first 10 users are?
"If I build it they will come" is not a plan. You need named places — a specific community, a specific hashtag, a specific meetup. If you can't name where the first 10 come from, you definitely can't name the first 1,000.
5. Can you test willingness to pay before building?
The strongest validation is selling before building:
- Put up a landing page (takes a day) and collect pre-registrations
- If sign-ups are dismal — congratulations, you just saved three months
If it passes
An idea that clears all five has earned the right to be built. Next: the Building Apps with AI map, and the free kit that turns validation-through-launch into step-by-step prompts. The kit's playbook is designed to kill bad ideas by step 3 — this post's five checks are its front half.