This is the answer for step 1. Figure out if there’s a market and figure out what that product is worth. You doing it manually is like a prototype but it’s actually providing value to your customers more than just hypotheticals without you spending resources building anything.

This approach is also forcing you to interact with potential customers. The value to you of those relationships is both quantifiable in terms of revenue but also unquantifiable in terms of learnings. Do as much as you can to learn about your customers and your product before spending anything on building it. This is the definition of MVP.