There are many ways to learn what your customers want. Building something and seeing how much they like it is one of the most expensive. It can be worth doing because you can see how people actually use your product rather than how they say they will use it but this only works if you can find people to use your product in the first place.

If you haven’t talked to potential customers before you start building something then you can’t know if what you’re building will be compelling enough for them to try it out. It’s much cheaper to learn this before you start any development work. If it’s hard to find people who are interested in your idea then it will be harder to find customers and you don’t want to waste effort building something you can’t sell.

If you’re working on something new how validated is it? Could you find some people you think would be interested to talk to and see if it’s something that works for them?