Founders launch businesses no one wants every single day. They ignore warning signs and barrel forward on gut feel alone. But nobody cares about your brilliant idea. What if you could validate your concept before wasting months building something nobody will buy?
Savvy entrepreneurs test relentlessly before they invest any money. They get brutal feedback from real customers and refine until they’ve nailed the offer that sells itself. Now it’s your turn. Copy, paste and edit the square brackets in ChatGPT, and keep the same chat window open so the context carries through.
ChatGPT prompts for idea validation: test before you invest
Figure out which problem you’re solving
People need a reason to act now. The pain has to be real and it has to be one they would pay to make go away. The market doesn’t reward cool ideas or clever features. The market rewards painkillers that solve burning problems. If your solution doesn’t alleviate their pain, you’ll get ignored.
“Help me validate the problem my business idea solves. My idea is [describe your business idea]. Ask me 10 questions, one at a time, to clarify the specific problem I’m targeting. For each question, provide feedback on my answer, pointing out potential blind spots. After all questions, assess whether this problem is urgent, widespread, and something people would pay to solve. Be brutally honest about weaknesses in my problem definition (and commercial value of solving it) and suggest improvements.”
Understand why they wouldn’t buy
Your competition isn’t other companies. It’s the status quo. It’s doing nothing. Apathy kills businesses fast. Smart founders reverse-engineer objections before launching anything. They dig deep into why someone would ignore their offer completely. Find every excuse customers will use to say no. Uncover the hidden barriers to purchase. Then design around them until they dissolve. Keep pushing until the objections disappear.
“I want to understand why potential customers might not buy my product or service. Act as a skeptical customer who finds reasons not to purchase my offering. Provide 7 realistic objections or reasons for apathy that typical customers might have. For each objection, help me brainstorm how I could address or overcome it. Finally, identify which objections seem most critical to solve before launch.”
Get competitor intel
Just because something failed before doesn’t guarantee you’ll fail too. Just because competition exists doesn’t mean there’s no room for you. But know the battlefield before you charge in. Study what’s working for others and why. Find the gaps others have completely missed. The gold is hiding.
“Help me analyze the competitive landscape for my business idea. Give a list of 5 potential competitors in my space. For each one, analyze their strengths, weaknesses, pricing strategy, and customer reviews. Help me identify potential gaps in the market based on this analysis. What unique angle could I take that others haven’t?”
Create your market research plan
Guessing what customers want is amateur hour. Assuming you know the market without asking is pure ego. Validation demands real conversations with real people. Your audience holds the ultimate truth about your business. They’ll tell you exactly what they’ll pay for if you ask proper questions. Design a research plan that gets brutally honest answers.
“Design a comprehensive market research plan to validate my business idea. Include: 1) 10 specific probing questions to ask potential customers, 2) suggestions for finding and approaching my target market, 3) methods to ensure honest feedback rather than polite encouragement, 4) a framework for analyzing responses, and 5) clear criteria to determine whether to proceed, pivot, or abandon the idea based on results.”
Test your idea without building anything
Average entrepreneurs waste months building products nobody wants. You’re better than that. Test your concept before writing a single line of code. See if people will actually pay before you invest serious time. Create the absolute minimum viable offer and put it in front of your audience tomorrow, then get real commitments backed by money.
“Help me create a minimal test for my business idea that requires no product development. Suggest 5 lightweight approaches to test market demand such as landing pages, pre-orders, or concierge MVPs. For each approach, outline exactly what I need to create, what metrics would indicate success, and how to interpret mixed results. Include examples of effective messaging to use in these tests to maximize authentic responses.”
Validate ruthlessly: gather real feedback before you launch
You don’t need people to like you. You need customers to love what you’re selling. Figure out which problem you’re solving that people will pay to fix. Understand why they wouldn’t buy from you. Research your competitors until you know them better than they know themselves. Create your market validation plan. Test without building a thing.
Don’t be precious about your idea. Be relentless about finding the truth that others miss. Your success depends on it.
Access all my best ChatGPT content prompts.
This article was originally published on forbes.com.
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