A wise friend told me to validate before selling

Background

Hey everyone, this is Allan. I just got off a call with a close friend. We’ve been working together on a lot of projects since 2020. Even before I started freelancing, we were already collaborating, and we even shared an apartment in São Paulo while working for a company there. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how to get projects, find work, and build an audience, something we both want to learn.

New Idea

I told him about an idea I had this afternoon. I have a group of Brazilian developers who follow my AI work, and I share AI news with them in Portuguese. I thought about using that audience to make some money this week by running an online class, a live stream where I would show how to build a system from the ground up.

Specifically, I’m considering building a learning management system (LMS) where you can upload classes, and students can access videos and materials. It’s not a simple project like a LinkedIn page, but it’s also not something I can’t do, I’ve already built parts of it in other systems. I would use AI to speed up the development.

Friend’s Feedback

My friend asked whether this is something the people I know actually need, or just an idea of mine. He suggested that I first try to understand what people interested in building with AI would really want. He said I should learn that by asking them, not by trying to sell the class right away.

I’m not doing this just for the money, I do need some cash now, which is why I thought of a low‑price offering: ten people paying $20 each. Even though I believe the class is worth that price, his advice made sense. I need to be sure my potential clients actually want what I’m planning to deliver.

Next Steps

I’ll keep the idea I shared yesterday, but I’ll focus on figuring out the real problems people want to solve. The only way to learn is by asking and testing. That’s all for today.