What is 'customer validation' and how is it different from 'customer discovery'?

• A. Discovery identifies problems and customer needs; validation tests product-market fit and willingness to pay with actual customers.
• B. Validation comes before discovery in the process.
• C. They are the same thing.
• D. Discovery only concerns pricing.

Answer: (A)

Discovery is about uncovering what problems customers have and what they need, exploring how they currently operate, and identifying where there’s a real pain point. Validation then takes those insights and tests whether a proposed solution actually solves the problem in a way customers would be willing to pay for, effectively confirming product-market fit and pricing with real customers. The sequence matters: you first learn the problem space, then you test the viability of a solution in the market. It isn’t that validation comes before discovery, nor are they the same thing, and discovery isn’t limited to pricing. So the best description is that discovery identifies problems and needs, while validation tests whether the solution fits the market and customers’ willingness to pay.