Until someone pays, you have a hypothesis

You have an idea for a socionics app. Or a consulting service. Or a freelancer marketplace. Five hundred other people have the same one.

Here is what happens to 499 of them. Three to six months on a "proper" MVP. $700-$4,000, or their own time if they code. A hundred installs, sixty of them friends being polite. A month later: five active users, zero paying. The epitaph: market was not ready, competition, no marketing budget.

They learned the truth after a quarter of work. Either nobody feels the problem, or they do and the solution misses. I am writing this so the idea can die in a week, before it kills half a year.

People lie in interviews without malice. They do not know what they want until they hit a live product. "I would buy" and "I paid" live in different universes.

What it costs and what it actually tests

The more expensive the method, the more expensive the miss. Cheap first. Dear only after numbers.

Week 1: 10-15 conversations. Week 2: presale or a bot. Weeks 3-4: a real MVP if the first two did not die.

Talk before code

The goal is not to sell the idea. It is to see whether the pain exists, what they stuff in the hole now, and whether it burns enough to pay or at least hunt a workaround.

Where to find people for socionics: Reddit and Facebook groups, Telegram typing channels, forums like Socionics.org. Out of 20 cold messages, 5-8 reply, 3-5 agree to a short talk. That is a normal funnel. Write more.

Keep the message short. Their specific comment, three or four questions, five minutes, no product. In return you can unpack their case or send a reading list. If the first paragraph already says "I am building an app", the talk is dead.

I saw your comment in the typing group. You clearly know the topic. I am collecting where people break when they try to find their type. Three questions, five minutes. In return I will unpack your case or send the reading list I actually used.

Same in Telegram after a live chat message, with a pointer to that replica. Not all of twenty such notes get a reply. That is how the funnel is built.

Ask about the past, not the future.

• How do you use socionics now?
• Where does typing break?
• Which tests and consults have you already tried, and what fell off?
• When did you last pay for something similar?

Do not ask "would you buy an app" or "what features do you want". That is a request to be nice. Mum will always say the idea is brilliant. Fitzpatrick wrote a whole book about it, and he is not wrong.

After 10-15 talks the repeats appear. "Every test lies differently." "I sit on forums for hours." "I pay a typologist." Next to them, deal-breakers: "I do not trust an auto test", "I will not pay for content", "I need it offline".

Watch the sample. Anyone willing to spend half an hour on socionics is already a fan. The market is wider and colder.

"Cool idea" means they will install and delete. "How much, when does it ship, give me the beta" is already warm. At the end I ask for a contact if the MVP lands in two weeks. Email or phone given: the interest is alive. Not given: politeness.

Reconnaissance when you have no customers

Hypothesis for socionics: a person wants a type fast and a short write-up they are not ashamed to share.

Core: 10-15 questions, a result card, a share button. Not core: sixteen long dossiers, compatibility, history, ML tips.

Two to four weeks on React Native or Flutter plus Firebase if you really want stores. Faster: a Telegram bot, a PWA, Tilda plus a form. If you are not ashamed of version one, you are late. Shame is a working tool here.

Do not ask people to "rate the idea". Give a five-minute test. Nobody hired them to rate ideas.

I watch feet, not reviews. How many entered, how many finished, how many came back, how many sent the card to a friend. Out of a hundred people, ten answer if you ask, one writes on their own. I write to the first thirty myself.

Keep the after-test form short: accuracy 1 to 5, what to add first, would you recommend. It does not live on the first screen. They have not received anything yet.

Words lie, clicks lie less. If 80% drop the test, it is long or dull. The screen they sit on longest is the value. An uninstall in the first day means it did not catch.

Presale lies less than words

A landing for the future app. Preorder $4 instead of $8 after launch. Refund if it does not ship. A short consult as a bonus if you can carry it.

A newsletter signup is weak interest. An email "tell me when it ships" is politeness. Card out: that is the test.

Thresholds I use myself. 10+ payments in week one with no ads: a strong signal. 50+ in a month: you can build. 0-5: either the pain does not burn or the promise misses.

If you take money, you either make the product or you refund all of it. That is a contract, not "I tested and forgot".

Softer and weaker: a hundred seats in a closed beta, then a call saying "install". Five out of a hundred install: the interest was fake.

A landing plus email takes one to three days. Signup conversion above 5% and 100 addresses in a week without ads already say something. 80% of those addresses will not remember you a week later. Presale does not fit a free app that lives on ads: there is nothing to ring up.

A manual backend also works for a dozen people. The user thinks an algorithm is counting. You look at answers for an hour or two and send a type. At a thousand it falls over. Do not lie about automation. You will not wash that off.

Concierge is even more honest. Ten personal typings on a call. After the tenth you see which questions work. No scale, but the mush in your head ends.

When the numbers say stop

First month of a live MVP:

Below the bottom shelf is not "let us wait" and not "we need marketing". Either there is no product, or there is no problem.

Good signs without a table: they share on their own, one in five comes back in a week, they ask "when compatibility", they ask the price of a paid version, they describe the pain in their own words.

Bad: fewer than a third finish, nobody shares, silence even after you ask, quiet in the specialist groups.

The middle: 10-15% return, some want more questions, others fewer, they install and never open. Dig. Do not celebrate.

Seven days to kill it or keep it

Days 1-2. A hypothesis a number can kill. "People are interested in socionics" cannot be killed. "30% of landing visitors will leave an email for the test" can. Next to it, a failure floor: below X, the idea is dead.

Days 3-4. Either a landing with a $4 preorder and a refund, or a bot of 10-15 questions with a share button. Tilda in an evening, a bot in a day. By Thursday there must be a link you can send right now.

Days 5-6. Two hundred target visits. Five to ten topic groups, twenty DMs, a couple of forums. If organic does not carry: $30-$50 on ads or a post in a narrow channel.

Day 7. Count.

Presale: more than ten payments, build. Three to ten, weak interest, change the channel or the promise. Zero to two, bury it.

Bot: more than 60% finished and more than 20% shared, we live. 40-60%, fix the test. Below 40%, bury it or change the core.

If the floor is cleared: 10-20 talks with people who already touched it, the next hypothesis about money or return, then real development.

If not: do not put the idea on probation. Either there is no pain, or your solution misses. Burying ten hypotheses a week each is cheaper than spending half a year building one dead one.

Asking "what do you want" is useless. Watch what they already stuff in the hole and when they last paid for that. A fan, a random and a paying customer do not weigh the same. An MVP with sixteen types, a chat and monetisation on day one tests nothing except your love of volume.

Mistakes I burned myself on. I asked what they wanted, got a feature list and built it. I listened to a socionics fan with the same weight as a stranger who took the test once. I shipped sixteen types, compatibility and a chat on day one: I was testing love of volume, not pain. I skipped analytics on day one and later said "seems like it landed".

Until a live person says "where was this earlier" or "where do I pay", there is no business. There is a hypothesis. Its job is to die fast. If it lives, that is already something.