Strong agree here. I'm a non-technical founder.
I tend to interview 30-50 people initially to find a gap in the market. If I'm into something (strong PMF), a good percentage of those people I interviewed will be future buyers.
I typically have cascading meetings for the following steps:
1 - is this 10X better than what currently exists
2 - does our prototype look 10X better
3 - does our v1 solve the gap we found
4 - what features do we need to build in order to get you to pay for it
5 - what features do we need to get you to refer us to 3 friends
A meeting for each of those goals typically leads to customers (again, if I've found PMF).
I tend to interview 30-50 people initially to find a gap in the market. If I'm into something (strong PMF), a good percentage of those people I interviewed will be future buyers.
I typically have cascading meetings for the following steps:
1 - is this 10X better than what currently exists
2 - does our prototype look 10X better
3 - does our v1 solve the gap we found
4 - what features do we need to build in order to get you to pay for it
5 - what features do we need to get you to refer us to 3 friends
A meeting for each of those goals typically leads to customers (again, if I've found PMF).