At ProductCamp 2024, I announced my new business (idea) and spent the day talking to PMs about it 1-on-1. The enthusiasm was overwhelming. All the highly experienced product managers I talked to thought it was an excellent idea. It turns out we were all wrong. Eighteen months later, I'd completely changed what I was building, because I actually did the research. This is a case study in applying software product validation principles to a non-software product: what I tested, what failed, what surprised me, and how the business I launched looks nothing like the one I was pitching in those chats between sessions two years ago.