Validating Customer Interest in a Digital Product

This thesis examines customer interest validation in the context of digital product development. The objective is to design and test a methodological framework for customer interest validation covering four phases of product development: a pre paratory phase, pre-development, pretotyping, and in-development. The theoretical part analyses key methodologies in the field of validation, namely Lean Startup, Customer Development, pretotyping, and the concepts of Problem-Solution Fit and Product-Market Fit. The practical part applies the proposed framework to a case study of the RentSafe platform, an application for tenant screening and rating on the Czech rental market. Validation was conducted in four phases: market survey, Custo mer Discovery interviews, pretotyping via a landing page smoke test, and Guerilla Usability Testing of a clickable prototype. A market survey with thirty respondents confirmed interest in the solution (94 % would actively use tenant ratings). Customer Discovery interviews deepened the understanding of adoption barriers and identified the platform’s riskiest assumption. The pretotyping phase tested customer interest through a real landing page distributed via organic and paid channels. Usability testing with ten respondents verified the comprehensibility and usability of the prototype. Based on the results of the individual phases, a methodological framework was developed for small development teams and solo developers, minimising time and financial costs while maintaining the relevance of the insights obtained.