His wife left him.

Took the kids. Filed for divorce.

Because he spent their son’s college fund building a product nobody wanted.

$87,000. 14 months. Marriage over.

The product? A few users

This isn’t a cautionary tale from a book.

This happened to someone I know.

He built a “Web3 analytics dashboard for retail traders.”

The logic seemed sound: “Retail traders need better data to make decisions.”

So he quit his $90K job. Drained savings. Convinced his wife it would work.

“Just give me one year.”

She did.

He launched after 14 months.

Posted everywhere: Twitter, Reddit, Discord, Telegram.

Turns out retail traders weren’t struggling with “not enough data.”

They struggled with discipline, emotion, FOMO.

More dashboards didn’t fix that.

He solved a problem that sounded real but wasn’t.

Six months later, his wife left.

She’d supported the dream. Sacrificed stability. Watched savings disappear.

For 8 users.

He’s still rebuilding. Financially. Emotionally.

All because he assumed instead of validated.

THIS IS WHAT KILLS FOUNDERS:

They fall in love with solutions to problems nobody has.

“Crypto needs better UX” sounds true until nobody’s searching for UX solutions.

“Web3 onboarding is broken” feels urgent until you see people found workarounds.

Assumptions feel like insights. They’re not.

WHAT VALIDATION ACTUALLY IS:

Talk to 20 people before writing code.

Not “Would you use this?” Everyone says yes. It’s polite. Meaningless.

Ask: “How are you solving this RIGHT NOW?”

If they say “I’m not” → problem isn’t painful If they have a workaround → your solution needs to be 10x better If they say “annoying but manageable” → they won’t pay

Pain has to be active, present, expensive.

Otherwise you’re building for ghosts.

HIS MISTAKE:

He talked to 4 people first.

All said “could be useful.”

But none were actively hunting for a solution.

None tried other tools and felt frustrated.

They weren’t in pain.

So when he launched, they didn’t care.

$87,000. 14 months. His marriage. Gone.

For a product nobody needed.

IF YOU’RE BUILDING SOMETHING:

Stop. Ask yourself:

• Is this problem real or does it sound real? • Are people actively solving this TODAY? • What are they using instead?

If the answer is “nothing,” you’re solving a problem that doesn’t exist.

Don’t lose everything over an assumption.

Validate before you build.