Market validation probably does make getting to launch a whole lot less daunting. I’m not sure it’s the biggest piece that most people are missing, though. A lot of serious would-be entrepreneurs have an idea that they know would work, having done their research, but it requires technical skills that they don’t have. To hire a person with those skills requires money they haven’t made yet. It seems like their only option is to partner with a skilled person who believes in the idea and is willing to develop it as their own. But a person like that is extremely rare, because people with those technical skills either have their own big ideas, or they’re already paid by someone who has a big idea. So how do I find that rare person? I can’t just cold-call software engineers and give away ideas that could make them rich. I might hand out a thousand NDAs before someone else likes the idea enough to work for no money up front, and some of those thousand people will definitely break the agreement before I find the one.