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Ask HN: Would you pay for video prototype validation before building?

2•zhongyongxu•1h ago
I'm a developer who's wasted months building features nobody wanted.

Now I'm exploring a service: create 3-minute video prototypes to validate demand before writing code, then run targeted surveys.

The pitch: $500-1000 and 3-5 days to avoid a $20k failed MVP.

I don't have a product yet—just talked to 2 devs who said they'd use it.

Questions: 1. How do you validate features today? 2. Would you trust "fake" video prototype data? 3. What would make you actually pay for this?

Looking for brutal honesty before I build anything.

Comments

vunderba•1h ago
Trust is your biggest hurdle. For me, you'd have to answer several questions before I'd be comfortable plunking down 1000 USD.

1. Who are you?

2. Are you an established expert in any of the overlapping fields? (video, product demos, outreach, sales, SEO, etc)

3. How do I know you're not just throwing together an animated figma and using bots to simulate survey answers?

zhongyongxu•1h ago
Great questions—you're right to ask.

1. Who am I: jone, ex-tplink engineer, spent 3 months building a feature that got 0 sales. Painful lesson. Now trying to solve that for others.

2. Expertise: Not an expert in video/sales. That's why I'm talking to people like you first instead of building a platform. Currently learning by doing—first 3 validations are free in exchange for brutal feedback.

3. Fraud: Valid concern. My current process: - Typeform/Google Forms (you own the raw data) - You pick the channels (your Twitter, your Reddit, your email list) - I screen-record every response coming in - Deliverable: raw CSV + my analysis, not just a "trust me" PDF

   You're right that "public" without transparency is worthless. 
   What would make you trust the data?

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