Idea Validation Scorecard

Most founders find out their idea was not validated after they have built it. This free scorecard tells you before.

Twenty-five questions, five weighted areas, and an honest verdict in about twenty minutes. It measures the evidence you actually have, not how confident you feel about it.

What you get:

A score out of 100 across the five things that decide whether an idea survives
A plain verdict, from Unproven through to Beyond validation
Your three weakest areas, ranked by how much they are costing you, with a specific action for each
The full scoring model on its own tab, so nothing is a black box

How it's scored:

Problem Evidence, 30% – is the problem real, painful and proven outside your own head?
Demand Signal, 25% – has anyone done something that cost them time, money or data?
Customer Clarity, 20% – do you know precisely who has it, and can you reach them?
Solution Fit, 15% – does what you are building address the evidenced problem, and why you?
Viability, 10% – can it make money, and can you actually build it?

Problem Evidence and Demand Signal are more than half the score between them. That is deliberate. Startups very rarely fail because the solution was not clever enough.

The Demand Signal rule:

If your Demand Signal score comes in below 40%, your verdict is capped no matter how well you score everywhere else. You cannot be ready to build something that nobody has yet done anything to get. It is the part of the scorecard founders like least, and the part that saves the most time.

Every answer is a fixed option describing what has actually happened, rather than an agree or disagree scale. Founders agree with themselves.

Who it's for:

Anyone with an idea they have not yet proven. Pre-revenue, pre-build, or already building and quietly unsure whether the evidence is really there.

Ready to go further?

This scorecard is free. Builder is £39 a month and includes every course, the full library of templates and kits, the investor database with smart matching across 5,500+ investors, and an uncapped AI Co-Founder that knows your startup.