Ask HN: Which approach is better to validate an idea?

I needed to build a few landing pages for a product.

One thing led to another, and I decided to build a no-code landing page builder.

I think this is a tool that many would find use for, and could benefit from.

I intend to make most parts of this tool free to use (including adding your own custom domain to your landing page). There would be paid add-ons, sure.

So, initially I was building a first cut for the product.

A notion-like interface where you simply select the blocks you want your landing page to have, fill in the details, and publish.

https://twitter.com/mx_abhishek/status/1756969547137945799

The problem was, the more I was working on it, unsurprisingly the more work it needed.

And so far, I had no idea if:

this is something people would want, need and love this is something a good number of people would pay for. So, I decided to go about it a different way.

I am still offering the service more or less the same. Build your landing page without needing to code or design Instead of giving an interface, I am making the page driven by a YAML file. A person can use online editors such as codebeautify.org to generate the YAML file, upload the YAML file, connect their domain and the page goes live. I am making this a LTD to evaluate interest. One payment of $49 for a landing page, and the user will have all benefits of whatever the paid plan will have - for life.

https://twitter.com/mx_abhishek/status/1758843135872950639

The way I see it, if the product is valuable enough, and at a good enough price point, people may not mind the extra work -- specially since it still holds true to the core premise of not needing coding and design knowhow.

Am I mistaken in my approach, or do you guys think this could help me validate things?