Following on from my post last week and the messages I received from it, I wanted to share a mistake I made in tech startups and one I still see other founders making today.

I fell for the “build it and they will come” mantra.

I came up with what I thought was a great idea and, before I could even say the words “market research” or “business model,” I dove straight into building. Building is exciting. The possibilities feel endless. It’s a thrill to create something that could change the world.

But I never stopped to ask the basics. Who is this for exactly? How will it be sustainable? Is what I’m building valuable enough that people will actually pay for it?

In business, inaction can kill you just as much as snap decisions. But there are fundamental questions every founder should ask before throwing money or time at an idea.

The best approach I’ve found is Paul Graham’s “do things that don’t scale” method. Rather than building a £20k MVP, focus on a cheap, manual, inefficient way to prove people care about what you’re building. It’s not flashy, it’s not pretty, but it quickly tells you whether your idea has legs so you can spend more time building what people actually want.