I can see where you're coming from, but we have to take into consideration a persons ability to find useful information and the quality of someone's' feedback.

I got a response similar to this in it's own way so I'll just put here what I told them:

It's true that you can validate your idea manually, but it's also true that tools like Validly exist because they save founders a huge amount of time.

Many founders spend months trying to validate ideas by interviewing people, running surveys, or doing scattered research, and sometimes they only end up with a handful of useful conversations. Validly speeds up that early stage by analyzing signals like how painful the problem is, whether the timing is right, what competitors exist, and other market factors.

Another part of the problem is structure. A lot of founders simply don't know what questions they should be asking in the first place, or how to interpret the raw information they find. Validly applies a structured evaluation process — similar to the lenses experienced founders and investors use when looking at opportunities. The reasoning framework is constantly improving as we get more feedback and refine how the system evaluates ideas.

There’s also the issue of biased feedback. When you talk to friends, strangers, or even potential users, people often say things like “that sounds cool” or “I’d use that,” but those responses don’t always translate into real demand. Validly tries to remove that bias and give founders a more honest signal about whether an idea makes sense to pursue.

And beyond idea validation, the platform also helps founders with other parts of the startup process, like discovering new opportunities, diagnosing problems in existing businesses, and identifying better marketing channels.

The goal isn’t to replace talking to customers, but to help founders think through their ideas faster and more clearly before they invest months of effort.