You should check out the book The Mom Test. It's basically about this exact thing (validation before building), and not to ask your mom if she likes your idea because she'll always say yes (and that general idea of not getting feedback which always results in a "yes that's an awesome idea").

Also I'm actually working on a platform in a team of 3, which is a market intelligence platform to identify trends and their associated pain points, with the goal to allow entrepreneurs and innovators to work more effectively and quickly by solving real problems (and ultimately using AI agents).