I made my validation thesis and frameworks that i used to run discovery open - https://aishwarya-48913.medium.com/startup-pivots-how-we-ite...

And the process of defining ICP, finding them here - https://aishwarya-48913.medium.com/founder-led-sales-for-us-...

I wonder for every Dropbox how many similar products are there in the graveyard.

Technically I understand the market fit as the point where your unit economy starts making ends meet and showing positive dynamic. If for every dollar spent (on everything including and most importantly user acquisition) you can prove yourself that you get >1$ returns, your business model works.

And I doubt there is a simple strategy for that, or even a finite number of strategies, even complex ones that can guarantee you anything.

And I'm sure nobody truly knows "in advance that it'll succeed" whatever "it" is.

I don’t think most successful products were “validated” in advance in the way blog posts describe. What usually gets validated early is not demand, but whether the founders can consistently get someone to say yes. Code, MVPs, and even competition are secondary. Distribution comes first, and it’s almost always messier and more manual than the advice suggests. Most validation looks like pushing something imperfect until either people start pulling it, or you give up. In hindsight we call that validation. At the time, it mostly feels like guessing with feedback.