Validation is Overrated with Jason Fletcher
On the Predictable Revenue podcast, Collin Stewart interviewed Jason Fletcher, founder of DevPipeline, a software apprenticeship program training overlooked talent in rural Utah.
Jason didn’t build with funding, marketing, or a roadmap. He built by doing. The result: a sticky, mission-driven business with real product-market fit and zero ad spend.
The way Jason built it holds lessons every founder should steal.
You don’t Always Need to Validate
Many early-stage founders waste time chasing validation the wrong way. We build polished decks, run surveys, theorize in Notion, anything to avoid the real test: doing the work.
Jason didn’t start DevPipeline with a go-to-market plan. He started with three junior devs who couldn’t get hired anywhere else. He gave them a shot, went out and found small projects to work on, and built from there. No launch announcement. No funnel. Just delivery.
“The validation was actually just getting in and doing it.”
Testing Demand
Could he identify overlooked talent, train them, and deliver results to real clients? It turns out, yes. But that answer only revealed itself once he started. Not before.
Founders often wait for permission, a customer intro, a market signal, or a green light from an advisor. But most clarity comes after motion, not before. You learn what the business is by doing the business.
Validation is a customer served, a job done, a loop closed. If you’re still planning, start delivering. The answers live in the work.
You Can Build a Moat in Services. If You Build a Model
Service businesses get dismissed fast in venture-backed circles.
They’re “unscalable,” “undifferentiated,” “low-margin.” And often, that’s true. But it’s not inherently true. It reflects the typical structure of most service-based businesses.
DevPipeline broke that pattern. They aren’t just a dev shop. They’re a full-stack loop: find raw talent, train them through an in-house apprenticeship, deliver high-quality dev work, then feed those trained developers back into companies hungry for long-term hires. That flywheel is functional, sticky, talent-rich, and deeply defensible.
“This is one of the first services businesses I’ve run into that has a bit of a moat.”
It’s also quite challenging to replicate.
To replicate it, you’d need deep developer experience, curriculum design chops, operational systems for training and delivery, employer partnerships, and a regional community that trusts you. That’s not something you spin up in a WeWork with a Stripe account.
This is the quiet truth: services can be defensible, not through software, but through system design. And when mission, margins, and model all reinforce each other, you’ve got more than a business. You’ve got gravity.
Moats in services come from craft. If you can build a model others don’t want to (or can’t) replicate, you win.
Their first customer? The office next door. Literally.
Jason had a team of junior devs and no clients. So when a nearby business mentioned they needed something built, he said yes and delivered. That led to another intro. Then another. Eventually, they expanded into rural towns where companies had tech needs but zero local talent. No pitch decks. Just proximity and proof of work.
It sounds almost too simple, but that’s the point:
Early customers aren’t a marketing problem. They’re a problem of proximity and usefulness. Someone around you already needs help. They just don’t think of you as the answer yet.
In a world obsessed with funnels and scale, we often forget that business begins hyper-locally. That “first 10” doesn’t need a CRM. It needs ears, legs, and a willingness to say, “Yeah, we can do that.”
Don’t launch. Don’t overthink ICP. Just ask: who already knows me, trusts me, and has a problem I can solve this week? That’s your go-to-market strategy.
Product-Market Fit Is When Both Sides Say “Thank You”
We talk about product-market fit as if it were a milestone. Something you hit, like 10k MRR or your first retained customer. But real fit is messier, and also more obvious, when you’re paying attention.
For Jason, it wasn’t about NPS or net revenue retention. It was when apprentices started saying, “This changed my life,” and employers said, “We want more like them.” That’s the moment where your product stops being something you sell and becomes something people rely on.
It’s easy to mistake sales for validation.
But in services, especially, people will buy things they don’t really value, once. The stronger signal isn’t the check. It’s the callback. The referral. The unsolicited testimonial. The moment your customer does your marketing for you.
When both sides of your market, buyer and end user, are actively rooting for your success, you’re onto something. And when they say thank you without being asked? That’s fit.
Stop asking if people are buying. Ask if they’re staying, referring, and cheering. That’s how you know you’ve built something real.
There’s Gold in Overlooked Markets
The startup playbook tells you to go where the talent is: SF, NYC, remote hubs, digital nomad enclaves. But sometimes the strongest product-market fit lives in places the playbook never mentions.
DevPipeline found it in Vernal, Utah, a rural town better known for its oil and gas industry than for JavaScript. Local companies were desperate for tech talent. Local residents sought stable careers without having to leave home. The supply-demand gap was massive. No one else was filling it.
By embedding itself in that community and training local apprentices, DevPipeline became an integral part of the infrastructure. The kind of company people don’t churn from because they don’t want to.
The insight? Overlooked markets aren’t unattractive.
They’re uncontested. And for founders willing to go a layer deeper, they often offer faster trust, higher retention, and stronger mission alignment than any hot city ever could.
Don’t chase where everyone else is selling. Look for where no one else is listening. The best opportunities aren’t always where the noise is.
You Can’t Skip the Hands-On Part
Founders love leverage. But too often, we chase it before we’ve earned it.
Jason didn’t hand off the hard stuff. He taught the coding classes himself. Ran delivery. Built curriculum. Designed the assessment system. Not because he wanted to, but because he had to understand it before he could scale it.
“Our motto is: own your journey.”
The same applies to every early-stage founder. Whether it’s sales, onboarding, delivery, or customer support. If you haven’t done it, you’re flying blind. No playbook will save you from a function you don’t deeply understand.
What DevPipeline built, a scalable apprenticeship engine, only works because the founder did every job in the system first. And it shows. The result is trust, precision, and durability.
Leverage comes after sweat. Don’t skip the reps. Build the engine by hand before you automate the belt.
Conclusion
You don’t need a perfect plan, a fancy market, or a pile of funding to build something that lasts. What you need is proof earned by doing the work.
Jason Fletcher didn’t theorize his way to product-market fit. He taught the classes. Closed the clients. Built the system. And that hands-on approach led to something rare: a defensible services business with loyal customers and life-changing outcomes.
That’s the lesson: build first, scale second. Trust is the real moat.
Trying to make your revenue more predictable? Book an intro call with the Predictable Revenue team.
Curious how DevPipeline could help your team or community? Visit devpipeline.com
NO TIME TO READ?
