First time validating a problem. Turns out nobody needs what I'm building.
I was building Saveyond, a profit tracking tool for founders. Connect Stripe/Polar, add your expenses, see your real profit. The thesis was that most founders track MRR but don't know their actual margin.
I posted in r/Entrepreneur asking how people track profit. The answer: spreadsheets and accounting software. Nobody said "I wish something better existed." They said "a spreadsheet works fine."
That's the clearest kill signal I've ever gotten. People have a solution they're happy with. I'm not solving a pain, I'm competing with "good enough."
6 months ago I would have ignored this and built it anyway. I did exactly that with my first product (AI chatbot, 5 free users, $0 revenue, 6 months of work). This time I'm catching it early.
Still finishing it for a hackathon submission but after that I'm pivoting.
The lesson: validation isn't about people saying "cool idea." It's about finding out if they're actually in pain or just mildly inconvenienced. Spreadsheet users aren't in pain.
Anyone else killed an idea after validation? What was the signal that made you stop?
r/Entrepreneur is mostly side-hustlers and hobby founders — they genuinely are fine with spreadsheets because they have 3 expenses and one revenue source. That's not a kill signal, that's a channel signal.
The founders who actually have this pain are running $10k+ MRR with Stripe, multiple tools, contractor costs, and no clue what their real margin is after fees. They're not hanging out in r/Entrepreneur. Try posting in SaaS-specific communities or just DM 10 founders in the $5k-$30k MRR range directly.
Thanks for the tip, will try to validate in other communities as well
Here's the rewritten version:
Yeah, the spreadsheet thing is what really gives it away. I went through the exact same situation about six months back. Built what I thought was a killer time tracker specifically for solo founders. Asked around twenty people if they'd actually use it, and you can probably guess what happened. Nineteen of them said "sure, that sounds useful."
But when I bothered to check? Not one of them was tracking their time in a way that actually caused them any pain. So I killed it. Wasted about three more months before finally figuring out the real validation trick. Here's the kicker — you gotta see if they'll throw down even a single dollar for it.
So out of genuine curiosity, what did your post-mortem uncover? Did you ever figure out what people in that space were actually opening their wallets for?