Building 30% of Value in 6 Months, and the Other 70% in 3 Days
I went into two critical validation meetings in 48 hours with what I thought was my core product: a powerful AI strategic analysis engine. I was proud of the data, the insights, the "what." This thing was complicated: scraping social media profile data, calculating performance data, variances, ratios, applying heuristics to identify insights.
My hypothesis was simple: "Will busy founders and SMB owners pay for a data-driven report that gives them strategic clarity?"
The feedback was that while strategic analysis helped them achieve some clarity, full "direction" still required actually proposing the concrete steps to take. It was about a deeper, more painful problem I had completely underestimated: the blank page problem.
I thought I was selling a map. My users wanted "turn left, walk 100m then turn right" level of direction, but still wanted it to be ingrained in the strategic direction my insights gave.
The First Test - The Owner-Manager
My first meeting was with "Tablespace" (our paying SMB persona). He's a busy owner of a geek-themed cafe. His marketing is handled by a non-expert staff member—a waiter who also posts on Instagram.
I showed him the V1 Strategic Snapshot: a clean email report comparing his performance to his local competitors.
The Good News:
- He immediately saw the value in the data
- The insight that his content quality was 4x more engaging than his competitors was a massive, confidence-boosting win
- The confirmation that his biggest weakness was posting volume resonated. It validated a gut feeling he'd had for months
The "Aha!" Moment: The conversation immediately pivoted. He said, "Okay, this is great. It confirms I need to post more. But my real problem is that my staff gets paralyzed. 'Post more' is too vague."
He didn't just want a diagnosis; he needed a delegable prescription.
He asked for: "a daily content idea," "a 14-day content calendar," a system that tells his staff "today, do this."
This was the first signal of an emerging 70/30 Rule: The strategic analysis was the 30% that built trust, but the 70% of the value he desperately needed was in the day-by-day action plan.
The Second Test - The Founder-Creator
My second meeting was with "D-Man" (our Founder-Creator ICP). He's a sophisticated solopreneur, a sales coach who is both the strategist and the doer. He lives and breathes content creation.
I showed him the evolved V1.5—the Strategic Snapshot plus the first AI-generated 14-day content plan (a direct response to the Tablespace feedback).
Powerful Validation:
- He immediately confirmed the 70/30 split. He explicitly said: "I'd put the strategic [report] at 30%, I'd put the actionables at 70%." This was a massive confirmation
- He validated the non-obviousness of the insights, particularly the depth of the posting frequency gap and the specific CTA playbook pivot
The Missing Piece: He gave the content plan a "6.5 out of 10" for execution confidence. This was a critical data point.
When I dug into the "why," he articulated the core pain of the expert doer: "The description gives a good direction, but I'm still missing my steps... The reason my posting is that low is the thinking part."
He didn't just need ideas; he needed the structure of the content itself—the hook, the body points, the CTA placement. He needed a blueprint that eliminated the cognitive load of creation, even for a topic he's an expert in.
This led to his conditional "no" on the $20/month price: "Not yet, because it's not solving the one thing I need to do the most, which is the steps." He gave me the exact feature requirements to earn his business.
The Synthesis - A Grand Unifying Theory of Execution Friction
In 48 hours, two completely different users - an SMB owner with a non-expert team and a sophisticated solopreneur—had described the exact same problem from opposite sides.
The Insight: The core value of my product is not just "strategic clarity." It is "eliminating execution friction."
- The Owner-Manager needs a system to eliminate the friction for his team
- The Founder-Creator needs a system to eliminate the friction for himself
The New Mission: Mixplate's job is to be an AI Strategist & Execution Partner. We must bridge the gap between the high-level "what" and the on-the-ground "how."
The New Roadmap - From Feedback to Features
The feedback wasn't a setback; it was a gift. It gave us a precise, validated roadmap.
Priority #1: Build the "Structured Blueprint." The content plan must evolve. It will now include the specific structure for each post—the hook, body, and CTA for a Reel; the slide-by-slide narrative for a Carousel. This is the feature that solves the "thinking part."
Priority #2: Ruthless Clarity. We will eradicate jargon ("cadence" -> "posting rhythm"), clarify metrics ("impact" -> "engagement lift"), and simplify visuals. Trust is built on understanding.
The UX Vision: We landed on an elegant solution for presenting all this detail without overwhelm: "Progressive Disclosure." Users will see a simple creative brief by default, with the option to expand into a full, deep-dive production blueprint.
Key Takeaways for Other Founders
Validation isn't about seeking a "yes." It's about a relentless search for the truth. A "no, because..." is infinitely more valuable than a polite "yes."
Listen for the pain beneath the feature request. My users asked for "a calendar" and "steps," but the real pain they were describing was "execution friction."
The product you start with is rarely the product the market truly needs. Be prepared to fall in love with the problem, not your first solution. Our journey to PMF is just beginning, but for the first time, the path is crystal clear.