Most Founders Start With the Product. I Started With These 3 Questions Instead. | Entrepreneur

"Before investing anything in product development, I set up a test. I opened an Etsy store selling AI-generated pet portraits during the holidays. It was clunky. Every order meant I was manually training models and fulfilling them by hand. But people paid. They loved the results. It wasn't scalable - yet - but that didn't matter. It gave me proof: I could deliver something people genuinely valued They were willing to pay for it"

"I didn't have a background in AI or deep learning. But with open-source tools like Stable Diffusion suddenly available, people like me could build things that felt like magic. And like most entrepreneurs, I wanted to move fast. But instead of rushing to build, I gave myself a reality check. I asked three hard questions before writing a line of code."

Too many founders begin by building a product before confirming customer demand, which risks wasted time and money. The founder started by creating humorous AI images and recognized the potential of accessible open-source models like Stable Diffusion. Rather than rushing to code, three validation questions guided decisions. The first question tested real demand via a manual Etsy shop selling AI-generated pet portraits; orders demonstrated that customers valued the offering and would pay. Early revenue and simple pilots provide stronger signals than polished prototypes. Tactics like selling simplified offers, pre-selling services, or running paid pilots validate demand before scaling.

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