The Commitment Test: Making Validation Experiments Cost the Customer Something

Before Dropbox built anything, they put up a page and asked for an email address. In 2007 that required real effort — email wasn't something you threw at random products. That small friction separated passive curiosity from genuine intent. The principle applies at every stage. A validation experiment that costs your customer nothing produces data worth approximately nothing. Real commitment signal comes from asking for a purchase order on something that doesn't fully exist. A reference letter for an investor who hasn't asked for one. A workflow change before the integration is live. Build friction into validation deliberately. That's where the actual signal is. The response is the data. What they do next is the finding.