What does your very early idea validation attempt look like?

Hi Indie Hackers!

I’m currently exploring ideas and doing very early stage validation. I’m interested to hear what you folks do for the very first steps in validating an idea?

Typically, my process looks something like this:

1. Check for keyword trends and analytics suggesting that there is an active group of people in the market that my idea applies to.
2. Scour Reddit and other forums/groups to see if anyone is asking questions or indicating they have a problem that can be solved by my idea.
3. Search for potential competitors in the space. See how many there are, what pricing they are at, and generally get a feel for how well they are doing. Also check if users of these competitors have any problems with their product.

After I do those things and it seems like there is opportunity with this idea, I’ll dive deeper into validation.

I’m curious what your process is when performing very early idea validation?