Soft validation looked good, hard validation got zero. What would you change or pivot?

[App88]

Hello Fastlaners!

I’m testing a premium subscription supplement idea and would like feedback on my validation process, and on whether I should change course.

What I did

• Built a simple landing page with an email waitlist.
• Spent about $470 on Meta ads over roughly a week and got 46 leads at a cost per lead I was happy with.
• Emailed the whole list with a refundable $10 deposit to reserve a spot, then sent a reminder and a short “what’s stopping you?” email.

Result: 0 deposits and 0 replies, after the list had been warm for several days.

Context

• The sender was a free Gmail address, with no branded domain.
• There is no product yet, only a page and the concept.
• Leads came from cold Meta traffic, with no existing audience.

My questions

1. Is a $10 refundable deposit the wrong ask, either too small to feel real or still too much friction for a cold lead?
2. How would you design the next test: ads straight to the deposit page, interviews first, or something else?
3. Has anyone seen cold-ad leads convert at all in a no-product test, or is this the expected result?
4. If you’ve been in a similar spot, what did you change, and what did you learn from it? Would you pivot the offer, the price, the audience or the channel, or keep testing the same idea with a better setup?

I’m planning to talk to potential customers directly before spending more on ads. Does that sound right to you?

 

Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member: Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)