Ghost Products: How Fake Validation Is Breaking The Internet

Remember when "MVP" meant building something that actually worked? These days, the startup playbook reads more like a ghost story. Create a landing page, run some ads, collect emails, and congratulate yourself on "validating" your idea. No product required.

The Evolution of Fake Validation

First, it was email signups. "Get 100 people on your waitlist, and you've validated your idea!" they said. Harmless enough, even if most of those waitlists never turned into products.

Then came the fake demos. Screen recordings of prototypes that didn't exist. "Coming soon" features that were never coming. Still mostly harmless, right?

But now? Now we're entering dangerous territory.

The latest "growth hack" being pushed by startup gurus? Add real payment flows to your nonexistent product. Get people to actually try to pay real money. Then refund them because—surprise!—there is no product.

Let that sink in. We're deliberately deceiving people to "validate" our ideas.

The Internet of Empty Promises

Here's what this trend is actually creating:

A Trust Crisis Every time someone signs up for a waitlist that never delivers, they become a little more cynical. Every time they try to pay for a product that doesn't exist, they trust the next startup a little less.
A Discovery Problem How do you find real solutions when every Google search, every Reddit recommendation, every promising ad leads to yet another waitlist? We're making it harder for users to find products that actually exist.
A Competition Mirage Founders look at their market and see dozens of competitors. But how many are real? We're making business decisions based on ghost products that may never materialize.

The Real Cost of Fake Validation

"But it's just lean startup methodology!" defenders cry. "We're saving resources by validating before building!"

Are we though?

Let's talk about the hidden costs:

User trust being eroded
Real products struggling to stand out among the phantoms
Founders getting discouraged by fake competition
The collective waste of thousands of people signing up for products that will never exist

Breaking the Cycle

When we built Refinewise, we faced this exact dilemma. Our market research showed dozens of tools promising to solve ticket writing and product management problems. Most were just landing pages.

We could have added another landing page to the void. Could have run some ads, collected some emails, "validated" our idea.

Instead, we chose to build.

Not everything at once. Not perfectly. But something real that solved a real problem for real users.

The Case for Building Real Things

Here's what we've learned:

Real Feedback Beats Hypothetical Validation
- Landing page signups tell you if your marketing works
- Real users tell you if your product works
Trust Is a Competitive Advantage
- In a sea of "coming soon," being actually available matters
- Users are increasingly valuing products that exist over promises
MVPs Still Work
- Your first version doesn't need every feature
- It just needs to solve one problem well

A Call for Change

Maybe it's time to rewrite the playbook:

For Founders
- Build something real, even if it's small
- Validate with actual usage, not just interest
- Be honest about what exists and what doesn't
For Users
- Ask if products are actually available before signing up
- Support companies that build real solutions
- Share your experiences with ghost products

The Way Forward

The internet needs fewer ghost products and more real solutions. Yes, validation matters. Yes, market research is important. But at some point, you need to build something real.

Because while others perfect their waitlist conversion rates, we should be perfecting our products.

Maybe it's time to bring back the true meaning of MVP - Minimum Viable Product. Not Minimum Viable Promise.

This post was inspired by our journey building Refinewise, a real product helping teams write better tickets. No waitlist required.