The Validation Laboratory

Hey there, I'm David — I built this place — and I need to tell you something that sounds like every marketing guru's origin story, except mine actually happened and I can prove every word I'm about to say.

My backstory starts in advertising agencies, where I learned marketing by working side-by-side with brilliant people who actually knew what they were doing. Not from blog posts or $2,000 courses, but in the crucible of real campaigns which had to deliver real results for real big clients or we'd all be looking for real new jobs.

But I had three problems:

1. I hated having a boss
2. I was done making other people rich
3. I suspected there was a better way to do all this.

In 2009, I decided to find out.

(Yes, I realize this is textbook "rebellious entrepreneur discovers secret methodology" positioning. The difference is what happened next.)

I chose photography as my testing ground. Not because I was gifted with a camera, but because it offered immediate feedback, clear success metrics, and a fragmented market where superior marketing methodology could quickly dominate.

(It helped that I had the gear already and enjoyed the craft too)

I applied every principle I'd absorbed in those agencies. Market research. Customer psychology. Rapid prototyping. Systematic positioning. Iterative product-market fit.

The results came fast.

By the end of 2009, my marketing skills (definitely not my photography talent) got me named "best portrait photographer" in Kansas City.

It was a landslide.

Not magic. Not talent.

A simple advocacy campaign with zero spend.

Just the warm-up laying the ground-work for...

I'm about to tell you about achieving 100% close rates for four consecutive years. Yes, I know how this sounds — like every marketing course testimonial that makes you roll your eyes and close the browser tab. I hate it too.

You and I agree, most marketing success stories are complete bullshit.

Naturally this one isn't. So here's my promise to you:

Before the end of this section — the moment I tell you what "the offer" was — you'll understand exactly how I made it happen.

Here we go...

In January of 2010, I made a decision that would define the next four years of my life: I followed my own advice and niched down, mercilessly, eventually settling on fitness photography.

Specifically, fitness competitor photography.

I studied that spray-tanned market like my life depended on it.

I joined their communities. Joined their gyms. Learned their culture and language. Understood their pain points so precisely I could predict their objections before they voiced them.

Then I crafted the offer.

What happened next still seems unbelievable:

Four consecutive years of 100% close rates.

Not 95%. Not 99%. One hundred percent.

751 prospects over four years. 751 sales.

If you received my offer, you bought. Every single time.

Yes, that sounds exactly like the impossible testimonials in every marketing course. I know. It's just such an outlandishly huge claim.

And yet, that was my life.

I'm sincere when I say the secret wasn't photography talent. Yes, of course the photos had to be good... craftsmanship should be a given, not a differentiator, so... if there was any secret (there wasn't), it would've been that I had a distinct advantage because of one simple truth:

None of my competitors understood the athlete's real pain point about show photography — the "job" they were really trying to get done.

Thanks to method marketing and systematic validation, I did.

Pay attention, the slow reveal begins here...

Every. Single. One. of those fitness competitors absolutely HATED the 4-6 week photo delivery time but, there was no other option. Back then, that was "the standard" somehow... from every photographer in the United States. What!?

So when I tell you my team cut that delivery time down to 30 minutes, the fact probably seems "interesting" and maybe even a little impressive but, it certainly won't seem like enough to hit (and hold) that close rate... right?

It wont make sense until I give you the next puzzle piece — the critical insight behind the delivery improvement:

Delivery that fast meant (for literally the first time in their industry) competitors who bought from me could see their photos between their morning and evening competitions.

Said another way, delivery that fast meant I was their ONLY option for seeing how they looked (from the judges perspective, cause I sat right next to them) between the two events. It was unparalleled and immediate visual feedback on their performance, between performances.

Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful form there is.

Mine was instant.

If you'd objected for one reason or another at first, that objection went out the window after the morning show because, every. other. competitor. had their images in-hand by the time they stepped off stage.

Because real validation is about understanding a market so deeply that resistance and competition disappear entirely.

After the first year of running the offer, I locked in an exclusivity agreement with the show organizers. From that point forward, no other photographers were allowed to offer stage images. Game over.

This wasn't just good business instincts. It was systematic market validation in action — the same methodology I now teach entrepreneurs through Wabbit. Deep customer research. Rapid assumption testing. Iterative offer development. Obsessive focus on real pain points over imagined features. That simple photography business became my first proof-of-concept that these principles could create impossible results in any market, if you applied them systematically and with discipline.

Here's where the story gets interesting (and where I finally get to stop sounding like every other "escaped the rat race" narrative).

Throughout my photography years, I'd been teaching validation principles at a startup accelerator. The methodology worked consistently — founders who followed it succeeded at rates that made other programs jealous.

But my business partner had a nagging question: "We know this works, but we've never demonstrated it from complete scratch."

In 2018, that became a bet.

The challenge: "Build a scalable, saleable business using exactly the methodology you teach. Start with $200. Never accept funding."

I accepted. The stakes couldn't have been higher — this was about proving systematic validation could create freedom, not just success.

That business became Wabbit.

Just like seemingly every other startup on the planet, we too (yes, the experts) had made a critical assumption that turned out to be completely wrong.

We assumed startups needed help with websites.

Given our accelerator experience, it seemed obvious — everyone we'd worked with talked about needing a "better web presence" but couldn't afford proper development.

So Wabbit started as a web design shop. Not because I wanted to build an agency, but because I was trying to prove a methodology.

This ridiculous thing was one of our first validation tests:

In spite of that, we were profitable in the first month. 15 clients in 30 days.

Within a year, serious recurring revenue.

But something kept happening that would change everything: Our website clients kept asking for marketing help.

"How do I get traffic?"
"Why aren't we ranking?"
"I have visitors, but nobody's buying. What's wrong?"
"My conversion rates are terrible. Can you help?"

Then COVID hit. And those occasional questions became a constant and panicked barrage.

While Wabbit itself was in no danger, watching 50% of our client roster go under in the first few weeks, something became blindingly clear:

Websites weren't the bottleneck. Their business-building understanding was.

These entrepreneurs didn't need prettier designs. They didn't need status quo "how to market my business" search results. They needed proper fundamentals. Systematic discovery and validation. Method marketing. Lean principles. The discipline to prove demand before building.

They needed the exact methodology I'd been using and teaching for over a decade.

That's when everything clicked.

All those years in agencies, learning marketing from the experts on the inside. The photography business that proved marketing principles through impossible close rates. The accelerator work teaching validation to hundreds of founders.

It had all been leading to this moment of clarity:

The difference between businesses that succeed and businesses that fail isn't luck, timing, or funding. It's validation. It's iteration.

Most entrepreneurs are brilliant at building things. They're terrible at figuring out if anyone wants those things before they build them.

That gap — between idea and validated demand — is where we thrive.

Everything else is a means to an end.

Today, we're proving it again, publicly.

Our expansion into game development education started with a simple question: What if we applied our validation methodology to one of the toughest industries around?

Rather than claiming expertise we didn't have, we're learning the market from the inside while documenting the entire process. Pixels & Profits — our game marketing education platform — is itself a live case study of our methods.

We're not game industry veterans teaching marketing. We're marketing and validation experts proving our methodology works in any industry by doing it with the garage door wide open, for all our neighbors to see.

Every newsletter. Every piece of content. Every strategic decision.

All of it documented. All of it validated. All of it proof that the methodology works when you apply it systematically.

This is how you build with confidence instead of hope.

After watching hundreds of brilliant ideas fail from poor market validation, and seeing systematic validation create breakthrough after breakthrough, one thing became unshakeable:

Validation isn't just smart business practice. It's the only way (we've found) to reliably build something truly sustainable. Something durable.

Whether through our Validation Laboratory service, implementation support, or education programs, our mission is always the same:

Replace hope with data. Replace assumptions with evidence. Replace guessing with knowing.

Because the most successful businesses aren't built on the best ideas.

They're built on the best-validated ideas.

And that itty-bitty reality-shifting realization changes everything.

Until next time, remember...

We are stronger together.