Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last month, a potential client approached me with what seemed like every startup's dream: a substantial budget to build a complex two-sided marketplace platform. The scope was massive, the technical challenge was interesting, and honestly, it would have been one of my biggest projects to date.
I said no.
Not because I couldn't deliver, but because they had the wrong approach entirely. They wanted to build a full platform to "test if their idea worked." They had no existing audience, no validated customer base, no proof of demand—just an idea and enthusiasm. This is exactly the trap most founders fall into when creating proof of concept pages.
Here's what I've learned after rejecting that project and helping dozens of startups build proof of concept pages that actually validate ideas instead of burning through budgets: your proof of concept shouldn't be a product at all. It should be your marketing and sales process.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why most proof of concept pages fail before they even launch
The 1-day validation framework I use with clients instead of 3-month builds
Real examples of proof of concept pages that led to actual businesses
When to build technology vs. when to stay manual
How to create urgency and FOMO without a functioning product
The distribution strategy comes later. First, you need to prove people actually want what you're building.
Industry Reality
What every startup founder believes about validation
Walk into any startup accelerator or browse through ProductHunt, and you'll hear the same advice about proof of concept pages: "Build an MVP, test with users, iterate quickly." The conventional wisdom sounds logical—create a simplified version of your product, put it in front of potential customers, and measure their behavior.
Most startup advisors recommend this standard approach:
Build a functional prototype with core features only
Create landing pages that explain the product concept
Drive traffic through paid ads or organic outreach
Measure engagement metrics like signups, time on site, and user actions
Iterate based on feedback until you find product-market fit
This framework exists because it worked for successful companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, and Zappos. Their famous "fake it till you make it" stories have become startup folklore. The tech industry loves these narratives because they suggest there's a repeatable formula for validation.
Here's where this conventional wisdom falls short: it confuses building with validation. Most founders spend months creating something before they know if anyone wants it. Even with no-code tools and AI, building any functional product takes significant time and resources.
The real problem? By the time you've built your "minimal" viable product, you've already made hundreds of assumptions about what your customers need, how they behave, and what they're willing to pay for. Your proof of concept page becomes a solution looking for a problem, not genuine market validation.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The project I turned down perfectly illustrates why traditional proof of concept thinking is broken. This startup had identified what seemed like a legitimate market opportunity—connecting suppliers with buyers in a specific niche. They'd done some market research, found existing pain points, and even had preliminary conversations with potential users.
But their approach was backwards. They wanted to spend three months building a functional marketplace platform "to see if people would use it." When I asked about their validation strategy, they showed me wireframes and user flow diagrams. Beautiful work, but entirely theoretical.
Here's what was missing from their approach: they had never actually facilitated a single transaction manually. They hadn't connected one supplier with one buyer, negotiated one deal, or processed one payment. They were planning to build automation for a process they'd never performed themselves.
This reminded me of a similar situation I encountered with another client who wanted to build a service marketplace. They had the same thinking—build the platform first, then see if people use it. I suggested a different approach: start with a simple landing page and facilitate the first 100 transactions manually.
The results were eye-opening. Within the first week of manual operations, they discovered that their original product assumptions were completely wrong. The pain point they thought they were solving wasn't the real issue. The pricing model they'd designed wouldn't work. Even the target customer segment was different than expected.
This experience taught me that proof of concept pages should prove demand, not demonstrate technology. The goal isn't to show you can build something—it's to show people want what you're planning to build.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After turning down that marketplace project, I developed what I call the "Manual First" approach to proof of concept validation. Instead of building technology to test an idea, I help founders build processes to validate demand.
Day 1: Create a Simple Value Proposition Page
Skip the complex wireframes and build a single landing page that clearly explains what you're offering. Focus on the problem you're solving and the outcome you're promising. Include an email signup and a "Request Early Access" form, but don't promise specific features or timelines.
For the marketplace client I mentioned, this meant creating a page that said: "We connect [specific suppliers] with [specific buyers] for [specific transactions]." No mention of a platform, no screenshots of interfaces—just the core value proposition.
Week 1: Manual Outreach and Validation
Use the landing page as a conversation starter, not a conversion funnel. Reach out directly to potential users on both sides of your marketplace. The goal is to facilitate real transactions manually—using email, phone calls, spreadsheets, whatever it takes.
This manual approach reveals everything: how long deals actually take, what information buyers really need, what concerns suppliers have, how much they're willing to pay, and what would make them choose you over existing solutions.
Week 2-4: Prove the Unit Economics
Once you've facilitated several manual transactions, you can calculate real unit economics. How much does customer acquisition cost? What's the average transaction value? How much time does each deal require? What's your actual take rate?
Most importantly, you'll discover whether the business model works before building any technology. If you can't make manual transactions profitable, automation won't save you.
Month 2 and Beyond: Build Only What You've Proven
After proving demand and unit economics manually, you can start building technology to automate the processes that actually work. But now you're building based on real user behavior, not assumptions.
The key insight: your proof of concept should be your sales and marketing process, not your product. If you can't sell your solution manually, you can't sell it with technology either.
Manual Validation
Start with spreadsheets and phone calls, not code. Prove you can facilitate transactions manually before building automation.
Real Unit Economics
Calculate actual customer acquisition costs and transaction values from real deals, not projected numbers from your business plan.
Process Documentation
Document every step of your manual process. This becomes your product roadmap when you're ready to build technology.
Customer Discovery
Use manual operations to discover real customer needs, not just validate your original assumptions.
The results of this manual-first approach speak for themselves. The marketplace client I turned down eventually found another developer who built their full platform. Six months and significant budget later, they had a beautiful product that nobody used.
Meanwhile, a different client who followed my manual approach discovered their real business model within the first month. They started with a simple landing page and manual operations. By month three, they were processing real transactions and had validated their actual market.
More importantly, they learned that their original idea was only 30% correct. The manual process revealed that customers needed different features, had different pain points, and were willing to pay for different outcomes than originally assumed.
The time savings were dramatic: instead of spending months building the wrong thing, they spent weeks learning what the right thing actually was. When they eventually did build technology, they built exactly what their validated customer base needed.
This approach also creates immediate revenue opportunities. While traditional proof of concept pages burn through budgets, manual validation can generate actual income from day one.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons learned from applying this manual-first validation approach across multiple client projects:
Distribution beats features: Your ability to reach customers matters more than your product's functionality
Manual operations reveal hidden complexity: Every transaction teaches you something that user interviews miss
Real customers behave differently than survey respondents: People's actual behavior often contradicts their stated preferences
Unit economics can't be assumed: You must validate them through real transactions, not spreadsheet projections
Technology should automate proven processes: Build tools for workflows you've already validated manually
Customer acquisition is often the hardest part: Focus on proving you can find customers before proving you can serve them
Speed of learning beats speed of building: Fast validation cycles matter more than fast development cycles
The biggest mistake I see founders make is treating proof of concept pages like product demos instead of market validation tools. Your goal isn't to impress people with what you can build—it's to discover what they actually need and will pay for.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups:
Create a "concierge MVP" where you manually deliver the service before automating it
Use email and spreadsheets to provide the core value while learning user workflows
Focus on proving recurring usage patterns before building subscription features
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Test product demand with pre-orders or waitlists before inventory investment
Manually fulfill initial orders to understand logistics challenges
Validate pricing and customer acquisition costs through direct sales