A flawless AI demo cannot prove that a product has a buyer. Before building further, name the person who controls the budget, the problem they already pay to solve, and the reason they would act now.
In 2001, inventor Dean Kamen unveiled the Segway after years of secret development in Manchester, New Hampshire. The machine did what the team had promised: it balanced itself, responded to a rider’s movements and moved through demonstrations with an ease that looked like the future.
The uncertainty sat outside the machine. Who would buy it in meaningful numbers, and for what urgent job?
The Segway solved balance before it solved demand
The engineering behind the Segway was serious. Kamen had already built medical devices, and his team developed a two-wheeled vehicle that could remain upright through dynamic stabilization. Steve Kemper documents the project, its secrecy and the expectations surrounding it in Code Name Ginger.
Yet a working machine left the commercial question open. Consumers could walk, cycle or drive. Cities had their own rules about where the vehicle belonged. Police departments, tour operators and other organizations could find uses for it, but those uses did not create the broad transport market supporters anticipated.
The demonstration showed that the mechanism worked. It could not show that a specific buyer had enough pain, authority and budget to change behavior.
I see the same gap in AI product work. A founder builds an assistant that reads incoming requests, classifies them correctly, drafts a response and updates the right record. On Friday, every test passes. The people watching nod.
Then someone asks who signs the contract.
The room gets quieter.
“Operations” is a department. “Growing companies” is a market description. Neither is a buyer.
A buyer needs a budget and a consequence
For an early-stage founder, the useful question is narrower: whose week gets worse when this problem remains unsolved?
Perhaps it is a support lead in Accra who has three people sorting requests by hand. Perhaps it is the founder of a Berlin SaaS company reviewing every sales proposal because mistakes reach customers. Perhaps it is a finance manager in Lagos who cannot close the month until someone reconciles mismatched records.
Those are still hypotheses until the founder can identify the consequence. Does the support lead miss response targets? Does the founder delay deals? Does the finance manager spend Friday evening correcting work that software should have caught?
A buyer appears when four facts line up:
- One named role owns the problem.
- The problem creates a cost that person already recognizes.
- That person can approve spending or reach the person who can.
- A current deadline, risk or workload gives them a reason to act.
The AI feature matters after those facts are visible. Without them, another successful demo can become a comfortable way to avoid the harder conversation.
This is why I treat distribution as part of product work. In Kweku’s Türkiye expansion decision, the useful test came before more features: could the product reach a real customer through a workable route? The same discipline belongs in a demo. Test the path to a budget alongside the path from prompt to output.
Replace applause with a buying test
The next demo should begin before the software opens.
Ask the prospective user how the work happens today. Find out who notices when it fails, what they have already tried and which budget would cover a fix. If nobody can answer, pause the feature discussion. You have learned something more valuable than whether the model completed the task.
Then ask for a commitment proportionate to the stage. That could be an introduction to the budget owner, access to a real workflow, a paid pilot proposal or a scheduled procurement discussion. Praise is useful feedback. A concrete next step is evidence.
This also changes what you build. A general AI assistant may look impressive, while a narrower tool tied to one approval, report or queue may be easier to buy. The product loses surface area and gains an owner.
That principle also sits behind what a broken order workflow taught me about buyer urgency. Buyers move when the failure is already costing them something they care about. Technical possibility alone rarely creates the deadline.
Put the buyer’s name on the next demo
The Segway team proved that a difficult machine could work. The market response showed that technical proof and buying proof are separate achievements.
Before next Friday, write one line at the top of the demo brief:
“[Name or role] can spend from because [current consequence] must change before [real trigger].”
If the team cannot complete that sentence with evidence from a conversation, do not add another workflow to the demo. Book the conversation that can complete it.
The most important person in the room may never touch the prototype. Make sure someone can name them before the screen lights up.
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