Why do most product ideas fail? In this episode, we talk about how to measure product-market fit and build a validation engine that works.

I’m Sabrina Mach — product leader, innovation strategist, and host of Creating Better Products.

Joining me is Bill Albert — researcher, measurement expert, and co-author of Measuring the User Experience.Both of us have spent years helping teams build better products.

But here’s the thing: Most product ideas don’t fail at launch. They fail much earlier — when teams skip pain validation, or assume their solution is good enough... without proof.

This conversation provides practical methods to measure innovation:

👉 Validate the problem first.

👉 Then validate if your solution actually solves it.

Key takeaways from the episode:

🛠 Adoption challenges start with weak pain validation. If customers aren’t adopting, the pain wasn’t big or urgent enough to warrant change.

🚫 "Launch and learn" isn’t validation — it’s gambling. Fast, but expensive. Validation before build is always faster in the long run.

💰 The $100 spend exercise — a simple, actionable validation method. Give customers imaginary money to spend on their most painful problems. This forces prioritization and gives clear, quantifiable signals.

⚠ Switching pain: the silent barrier to adoption. Even the best solution will struggle if switching feels harder than sticking with the current workaround.

📊 Build your own internal validation benchmarks. Track measurements across products. Build confidence and speed over time with your own patterns, not just generic frameworks.

🎯 My reflection as a product and innovation leader: Product-market fit is not magic — it’s disciplined validation.Bill’s methods gave me new ways to make that measurable and visible, especially in those “why are we slowing down?” conversations with stakeholders.

✨ Resources Bill recommends:

- Measuring the User Experience by Bill Albert & Tom Tullis

- Testing Business Ideas by David Bland & Alex Osterwalder

- Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez

- Journal of Usability Studies (free!): uxpajournal.org

- Greenlight Idea Lab’s product launch readiness tool: greenlightidealab.com

👋 Connect with Bill:

Website: https://www.greenlightidealab.com/

LinkedIn: Bill Albert https://www.linkedin.com/in/walbert/

🔥 I’d love to hear from you:

How do you validate pain and solutions?

What methods or signals have helped you avoid building the wrong thing?

Drop a comment or connect with me on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrinamach/

I’m always learning, and your story might inspire others too.