Solution-first discovery is expensive validation.
How to catch yourself before you build the wrong thing.
You can see the entire solution in your head. The database schema, the API endpoints, the user flow - it's all crystal clear. You know exactly how to build it, and honestly, it would be kind of fun to tackle.
This is both your superpower and your kryptonite.
I've watched brilliant technical founders fall into the same trap repeatedly: they mistake their ability to build something for evidence that they should build it. The logic feels airtight - if you can envision the solution and have the skills to execute it, why wouldn't you just... start building?
Because technical capability and market validation are completely different skills, and confusing one for the other burns months of runway.
The "I can build that" trap.
Here's what I've observed working with technical founders: the easier something is for you to build, the less likely you are to validate it first.
A non-technical founder has to convince someone else to spend weeks building their idea. That friction naturally forces validation conversations. But when you can spin up a prototype over the weekend, that validation step feels optional.
I watched one founder spend three months building an elegant automated reporting system because "it would only take a few hours to add each new report type." He was right - it was technically trivial to expand.
What he didn't realize until launch was that his users wanted fewer reports, not more. They were drowning in data, not starving for it.
Your technical skills can make bad ideas feel good because they're intellectually interesting to solve.
The pivot from coder to business owner.
If you're transitioning from individual contributor to startup founder, you're essentially learning to optimize for completely different metrics.
As a developer, your job is to solve technical problems elegantly. As a founder, your job is to solve business problems profitably.
The mindset shift is brutal: you have to stop caring about elegant code and start caring about ugly metrics. You have to resist building the "right" solution and focus on building the profitable one.
I've seen too many product-minded founders get seduced by feature requests that sound technically interesting but deliver minimal business value. A user mentions wanting export functionality, and suddenly, you're knee-deep in building a CSV generator instead of focusing on the core problem that drives retention.
The features that are fun to build are rarely the features that matter for growth.
The early traction trap.
Once you've got a handful of users, every piece of feedback feels like gold. Finally, people are using your thing and telling you how to make it better! The temptation is to build everything they suggest.
This is where solution-first discovery gets dangerous. You start treating user requests as validated hypotheses instead of unvalidated opinions. Someone mentions wanting dark mode, and you think "great, clear user demand" instead of "interesting, let me understand the real problem here."
I learned this lesson when we had five power users requesting increasingly specific customization options. Each request made perfect sense in isolation. Together, they would have turned our simple tool into a complex configuration nightmare that would confuse every new user.
User requests often solve individual problems while creating systematic ones.
What I wish I'd learned sooner about validation.
The good news is that validation doesn't have to slow you down - it just requires asking different questions before you start building. These are the mental shifts that changed how I approach every feature request:
Start with the behavior change, not the feature.
Instead of "users want export functionality," ask "what are users trying to accomplish that requires getting data out of our system?" Often, the real problem is that they can't find what they need inside your interface.
Separate urgent from valuable.
Just because a user needs something doesn't mean your business needs to build it. Ask: "If we solve this problem, what business metric improves?" If the answer is unclear, it's probably a distraction.
Test demand before building supply.
Can you satisfy the request without code? Sometimes users asking for new features really need better onboarding or clearer messaging about existing functionality.
Document the opportunity cost.
For every feature request, write down what you won't build instead. This forces you to think strategically about resource allocation rather than just tactically about problem-solving. You can use a tool like ClickUp (linked here) to track these trade-offs - it's helpful to see all your assumptions and opportunity costs in one place rather than scattered across Slack threads and sticky notes.
Set usage thresholds.
Before building anything, define how many people need to use it to justify the development time. A feature that 2% of users love might not be worth the complexity it adds for the other 98%.
Building validation into your founder rhythm.
The most successful technical founders I know have learned to be as rigorous about market validation as they are about code quality. They've developed the discipline to spend time understanding problems before jumping to solutions.
This doesn't mean abandoning your technical instincts - it means applying them differently. Use that same analytical thinking that makes you a great developer to break down market assumptions and user behaviors.
Your engineering mindset is an asset for validation, not an excuse to skip it.
Until next week,
Mike @ Product Party
Want to connect? Send me a message on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, or Instagram.
Invitation to reflect: What's the most technically interesting feature on your roadmap right now? Have you validated that users actually want it, or are you building it because you know how to solve it elegantly?
Delivery will become cheaper and cheaper with AI assistance.
The bottleneck will be Discovery with proper ideation and validation.
Your post expresses that clearly!