Should a founder focus on building a waitlist or audience before launching a prototype?

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Hi, thanks for the clarification. And I"m fine with you staying in two categories for as long as it takes to get a little confidence, so long as you realize that splitting your effort between two of them means you only are putting 50% the effort into each. So don't let indecision be a reason - you're never going to have enough information to make a clear decision. (And one essential trait of an entpreneur is their ability to make decisions based on incomplete, inconclusive, or contradictory information).

As for Instagram, the thing is, building a waitlist or an Instagram following feels safe, but it’s a trap. It’s easy to get newsletter signups because clicking a button costs nothing. It doesn't prove anyone will actually trust an AI to price their jobs. That level of commitment is infinitely bigger.

But you don't need a massive "leap of faith" to build a fully detailed app either. That’s the other trap.

You need to build what I call an MUP—a Minimal Unviable Product. It should be incredibly rough, barely held together, and maybe even manually operated by you behind the scenes.

If a tradesman can input a job and get a price back—even if you are the "AI" doing the math on the back end—that is a real test. Run some cheap ads to target them, get them to try it, and see what happens. It does not need to be repeatable or scalable at this point - you just need enough to see if it works - because that evidence will give you the confidence (and the resources!) to actually build it. So ... what can you do in a few days that will FEEL to your customers that they are actully using the product - even if it means you have to spend hours behind the curtain to give them the answer that AI eventually will in minutes.

The other essential skill for an entepreneur isn't coming up with great ideas . . it's being clever and creative enough to figure out quick, cheap and easy ways to test them out.