The Yibud blog
Short, opinionated essays on the parts of starting a company that nobody talks about honestly. Written by the team behind Startup MRI.
23 articles · updated Sep 12, 2026
Monetization Validation
The three pricing decisions a new SaaS founder actually owns (model, value metric, price points), the four Van Westendorp questions that produce real willingness-to-pay data, and the eight-week playbook that turns the answers into a defensible price.
Customer Research
Customer interview questions for startup validation, organized by what you need to learn — past behavior, current workarounds, decision context, and spending — plus the questions founders should stop asking, an interview-to-decision framework, and a realistic B2B SaaS scenario.
Validation Guide
Startup failure analysis is the discipline of converting documented startup failures into testable assumptions. Five real cases — Quibi, Webvan, Juicero, Homejoy, WeWork — analyzed with a seven-rung framework, then turned into the validation experiments a solo founder can run this week.
Validation Guide
How to use Eric Ries's Build-Measure-Learn loop to pick the next validation experiment — including the five-question decision framework, decision-threshold thinking, three labeled hypothetical examples, and the failure modes that distort the loop before the founder notices them.
Validation Guide
Problem-solution fit is the state where a defined customer has a defined problem and a defined solution would meaningfully improve their situation. The five rungs of evidence that prove the fit is real, the six failure modes that show it isn't, and the 14-day validation framework that separates real pain from polite enthusiasm.
Validation Guide
MVP validation is the discipline of testing the smallest useful version of your idea before committing months to a full build. Six methods, a five-step framework, and the seven failure modes that show up before the founder notices them.
Validation Guide
Product-market fit is observed, not declared. The four signals that show you have it, the seven failure modes that show you do not, and a 30-day validation framework that separates real retention from paid acquisition.
Monetization Validation
What willingness to pay actually means, the five-rung signal ladder from polite words to real money, and the Problem → Customer → Value → Price → Payment framework every pricing experiment is a sub-test of — before you write code.
Customer Research
Rob Fitzpatrick's book, applied to indie founders — the three rules, twelve questions, and a 5-interview script you can run this week to test whether anyone has the problem you think they have.
Customer Research
Eleven customer-acquisition channels ranked for solo founders with no audience, no budget, and no team. Includes a 4-week first-100-customers plan that fits in five hours a week.
Validation Guide
The API- and developer-tool-specific tests for technical buyers, integration cost, trust, documentation prototypes, and design-partner pilots — before you write the first endpoint. A practical handbook for API founders, SDK builders, infrastructure product teams, and developer-tool indie hackers.
Validation Guide
The B2B-specific tests for buying committees, procurement, ROI proof, founder-led sales, and the manual pilot — before you write code. A practical handbook for SaaS founders selling to businesses, enterprise software teams, and technical founders.
Validation Guide
The browser-extension-specific tests for Manifest V3 fit, Chrome Web Store policy, distribution outside store search, willingness to pay, and unlisted pre-launch testing — before you ship a packaged extension. A practical handbook for indie hackers, SaaS founders, AI tool builders, and browser extension developers.
Validation Guide
The mobile-app-specific tests for problem, retention, onboarding, distribution, and willingness to pay — before you ship a binary to the App Store. A practical handbook for consumer, productivity, lifestyle, health, education, and local-service apps.
Validation Guide
The marketplace-specific tests for supply, demand, liquidity, take rate, and two-sided interviews — before you build the platform. A practical handbook for B2B, consumer, local, creator, and talent marketplaces.
Validation Guide
Why AI startups need workflow, output-quality, and dependency tests on top of every SaaS validation question — and the cheapest experiment that proves each one before you build.
Validation Guide
Validate an AI startup idea by testing workflow demand, output quality, pricing, model dependency, distribution, and defensibility before building.
Validation Guide
The five recurring-revenue assumptions that decide whether a SaaS product survives month six, and the cheapest experiment that tests each one — before you write code.
Founder Mindset
Why the keyboard feels safer than the phone — confirmation bias, action bias, sunk cost, and a small weekly habit that breaks the build-first loop.
Monetization Validation
Six pricing experiments you can run this week, four documented startup cases that show the pattern, and a seven-day Stripe-checkout plan that asks for money — before you build.
Customer Research
Where early customers actually gather, how to recognize real Early Adopters vs polite audiences, and a one-week customer-discovery plan you can start this week.
Validation Guide
21 concrete checks across four validation stages — problem, customer, business, execution — with how to test each one, the common mistake to avoid, and a printable summary.
Validation Guide
The four assumptions every startup depends on, the four questions that test them, and the cheapest experiments that produce evidence in 2–4 weeks — before you build.
Startup MRI gives you the same structured evaluation in under a minute — free, no signup.
