The CTO Show with Mehmet Gonullu #551 How to Validate Anything: Kingsley Maunder’s SALT Test for Startup Builders
In this episode, Kingsley Maunder breaks down one of the most overlooked aspects of startup building: proper validation. With over two decades in the startup ecosystem, building products used by Disney, EA Sports, Snap, and more, Kingsley shares the hard-won lessons behind his framework, The SALT Test.
We explore how founders can turn raw ideas into validated products, avoid the assumption trap, distinguish noise from real traction, and leverage AI to accelerate product discovery. This conversation is a masterclass in thinking clearly, testing quickly, and building what people actually want.
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About the Guest — Kingsley Maunder
Kingsley is a veteran product builder, former startup operator, and the author of The SALT Test: How to Take an Innovative Product from Idea to Scale. Over the past 20 years, he has built and scaled products for some of the world’s biggest brands, taken two startups to exit, and helped another raise over $180M. Today, he teaches founders how to validate ideas, avoid costly assumptions, and build products that truly solve user problems.
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Key Takeaways
• Why assumptions are the biggest hidden risk in early-stage innovation
• The story behind the SALT Test and how Thomas Edison inspired it
• How to validate ideas in the right order
• The difference between noise traction and real traction
• Why customer discovery often leads founders astray
• How AI can compress weeks of product validation into hours
• Why you must test the problem before you test the solution
• When to pivot lightly vs when to pivot hard
• The importance of building something significantly better, not just slightly better
• How to distinguish between the user and the buyer in B2B products
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What You Will Learn
• A practical, repeatable process for validating any product idea
• How to talk to customers without falling into the polite feedback trap
• How to stress-test your assumptions before writing a single line of code
• How to set success and failure metrics before experimentation
• How to avoid “innovator bias” and ego-driven decision making
• How to use AI tools to accelerate discovery, research, and early validation
• How to map your idea through the Growth Map to find blind spots
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Episode Highlights
00:00 — Introduction
02:00 — Why the SALT Test?
04:00 — The Assumption Trap
06:00 — How to Stress-Test an Idea
08:00 — Noise Traction vs Real Traction
10:00 — The Right and Wrong Way to Do Customer Discovery
13:00 — Competing with Excel, WhatsApp, and the real world
15:00 — Behavior Change and “Significantly Better”
18:00 — Solution Selling for Founders
22:00 — How AI Compresses Validation Cycles
25:00 — B2B vs B2C Validation
27:00 — Pivoting: Light vs Hard
33:00 — Ego, fear, and founder psychology
36:00 — Lessons from Amazon and Successful Innovators
40:00 — Where Builders Should Focus Next
42:00 — Final Advice
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Resources Mentioned
• The SALT Test by Kingsley Maunder: https://www.kingsleymaunder.com/the-salt-test
• Kingsley’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kingsleymaunder/