Forge Blog
Latest news and articles about building products, extensible platforms, plugin development, and ecosystem growth strategies.
Validation Without an MVP: 9 Tests That Beat Building
Stop building MVPs. Here are 9 validation tests that prove demand before you write a line of code.
Forge 2025 Year in Review
A comprehensive look at Forge's transformative year in 2025, featuring the new client app launch, plugin marketplace (Beta), AI-powered features, enhanced security, and major developer experience improvements.
Customer Discovery 2.0: Using AI to Get Better Interviews
How to use AI tools to structure, transcribe, and analyse customer interviews for real insights. AI doesn't replace discovery — it makes you less delusional, if you let it.
The Marketplace Flywheel: How Plugin Ecosystems Compound (and Why Most Stall)
Most plugin marketplaces stall because the flywheel never spins. Learn what the real marketplace flywheel looks like, why most platforms never get it moving, and how successful teams (like Shopify) design for compounding growth from day one. Includes diagnostic checklist.
When Extensibility Creates Leverage (and When It Creates Liability)
A practical decision framework for SaaS product leaders and platform operators: when does extensibility create real leverage versus liability, and what should you open up first—and what should you keep locked down? Includes step-by-step evaluation process and readiness checklist.
Fake Doors That Don't Lie: How to Run Landing Page Tests Without Fooling Yourself
Landing page tests are easy to run but hard to interpret. Learn which signals matter and which are noise, and how to design fake door tests that reveal real demand.
Why Your Waitlist Is Lying to You (And What to Measure Instead)
Waitlists are vanity metrics. Here's what actually signals demand and intent in the AI era, and how to stress-test your waitlist to find real validation signals.
Idea Generation Is Cheap Now. Taste Is the Moat.
AI has made startup idea generation trivial. The real differentiator for founders in 2025 is taste: knowing which ideas are worth testing, which to kill, and why.
Welcome to the Forge Blog
Welcome to the Forge blog, where we share insights on building products, growing teams, and unlocking innovation in an AI age.
