[billconan]

because I can't find enough potential customers in my direct network. reaching out to strangers is also difficult without trust. the cold email response rate is 2%. For example, I built a new blogging platform (https://epiphany.pub), I couldn't find many bloggers in my direct network. I start a project to fulfill my needs, but I don't know where to find enough other mes.

also it is a chicken-egg dilemma. It's hard to validate without a prototype. (I know the dropbox story, it won't work in all cases.) sometimes, a product is trying to improve user experience, not about an innovative idea. I think that user experience has to be felt.

I also feel that customer interviews might be misleading sometimes. I remember when iphone was launched first time, it was way pricier than other cell phones. A lot of people were nay sayers including myself.

[NeilRamp]

I think customer interviews are definitely part of the mix, if done right (have you read The Mom Test?), but they don't give you 100% clarity. Perhaps just a more solid hypothesis...