Right now you can build almost anything in a weekend with coding tools like Replit, Base44, Lovable, Claude Cowork. The thing that used to take a team six months takes you a couple days nowadays.
So that's what everyone does. They build.
I'm seeing it happen right now. Many smart young people are building product after product, then worrying about finding a buyer, and when that gets hard, they go back to building. The building is fun. The building is fast. The building feels like progress.
I'm 100% guilty of this. I love building little apps and services nowadays, but I'm doing it because I actually enjoy it, and I don't need to make money. Do you have that luxury? So do as I say, not as I do.
Sell first. Build second.
If you're building something for businesses, you have a phone. Use it. Call ten companies and pitch them the thing you haven't built. Describe the problem it will solve, and how it will solve it. Then ask the only question that matters: if I build this, will you pay for it, and how much?
Get them to commit. A verbal yes is something. A signed letter of intent is better. A deposit is better still. You want a handful of businesses on the record saying they want this before you write a line of code, even if that line of code is easier than ever to write.
Common Objection
But Derek, nobody commits without seeing it.
In almost all cases, this isn't true. It's an excuse to avoid the hard thing, sales, and get back to the fun stuff, building.
To be clear, I'm not saying sell the concept and then build the entire finished product once there's enough interest. I'm saying break the process into stages, so you don't end up with a finished product and no customers.
So, for example, first sell the concept. If enough people lean in, build a demo. Show the demo. If enough of them lean in again, build v1. Each stage earns the next one.
And here's the part people miss. The selling isn't just validation. It's the best market research you'll ever get, and it's free. Every call teaches you something. The feature they actually want. The features they could care less about. The price they'll pay. The reason they'd say no. You learn more in ten sales calls than in any amount of time building in a room by yourself.
Next step
So before you open your AI tool of choice and start building, do the harder thing. Go sell the thing that doesn't exist yet.
If people buy it, or commit to buying it when it's finished, then build it. If they don't, you just saved yourself time and a lot of AI tokens that can be deployed to the next idea.