Tips for new founders
Tips for new founders:
Don’t know what to do when you’ve:
- Completely skipped on talking to customers
- Spent months creating your product
- And now no one wants to buy?
PIVOT.
Talking to customer is the most important thing you should do when building a startup. Figure out what the people want and build it, don't build something that does not fix anyone's problem. It's not a marketing problem at this point, it's the fact that you built something no one wants.
Founders, share your opinion down below
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As a long time wannabe founder. I never had any (potential) customers to talk to without building anything. It's nearly the chicken and egg problem. Who do I suppose to talk. What do I say or ask without showing a solution. What if everyone says that's a great solution, they'd definitely pay and disappear when it's ready.
People don't often think about what they are missing until we show. We didn't need facebook or instagram. No one was crying about not being able to share photos of what they eat or drink. Myspace was enough to cover our online social networking needs. I doubt anyone said "ey, wait myspace doesn't have games, we want farmville."
I think that's a misconception "no one wants to buy". We are the ones failing to sell, convince people to buy. Selling part is as important as building if not more. We need to give people reasons to buy it.
So if it takes months to build, it's going to take months to sell.
Absolutely! There's a dichotomy between people's needs and wants. "No one wants to buy" and "No one KNOWS they want to buy" are two different things.
I second on this. I feel that sometimes solving a very painful problem is not always the case to start a great startup. It could be something people “want” instead of “need”. Your startup may be offering something different and more interesting than the existing solution. For eg. MySpace > Facebook > Instagram > Snapchat > Tiktok. What do you think?
That's definitely another way to look at things. Very interesting with Instagram, never crossed my mind.
Don't just talk to customers. Make something and see their reaction. More importantly, make something (an MVP) based on what they said they wanted. You might find that they really didn't want that but couldn't really express what they wanted in words.
If you decide to talk to customers, do it the right way by reading "The Mom's Test".
What if the MVP takes a lot of time? Some MVPs are super easy to crank out depending on the idea. But some actually require a few features to make it worth it otherwise it can come off as a half baked product.
Here's a trick I learned from Sprint (the book by Jake Knapp) that might help:
All you really want to check is if people want this.
This means that you can gauge their reactions with anything ranging from a landing page (with screenshots?), a flyer, a dummy app (built with PowerPoint or Figma). In Sprint, an example they gave was helping Graco Inc test reactions to a new industrial pump using brochures that potential customers would have seen in a sales meeting.
@Rand_Assi I think the main one is don’t be afraid to get feedback, build in public and like you said pivot.
Also, additional tips is stick with the principles - what core problem does your business look to solve?
And does the solution you’re providing REALLY to that?
I’d say getting a co-founder is well worth while. And finally have fun! Building a business is always going to be work, but it should be a bloody laugh along the way, am I right?
Cheers!
There is a bit of luck involved as well and also you would need some $ as well to promote and let people know about your product. Most potential clients really don't want to talk as they are already flooded with people spamming them.
I disagree that you need $ to promote your product. You should be selling directly to people within your network, community, etc or asking for direct intro's. Spending $ to promote a product no one really wants is one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make.
Easier said than done. Been there done that and not much success. Not everyone will have success with your advice. Horses for courses... DO what works best for each person and sometimes it is a trial and error. Sometimes you may need to spend money to make money but that may not work for everyone.
My marketing teacher in high school always used to say “there’s a market of 50,000 for anything”.
Maybe what you’ve built is not being communicated properly. Don’t pivot without a clear why.
So I have talked to potential customers who show genuine interest. I am currently creating the product. What happens when it comes down to it, they end up not buying? Because now that it is here and real, they don't know whether to take the plunge. Do you just start giving it away for free until they want to spend their money?
Simple and accurate. Love it!
Aside from the things that have been mentioned here already. I think anyone that wants to start building should start with minimum viable community. Talking anyone that like the idea and getting them all into a common space like slack/discord even just a whatsapp group and building in public with this community. This I feel will be the next thing in creating products.
Newbie to the startup journey and we've spoken to around 20+ people over the past month! The hard thing now is trying to figure out what to do with all the diverse stories, opinions and problems we collected through these interviews.
I completely agree with this. I've struggled with this as well - I run marketing for a startup. How I've handled it is to focus on finding a group of people that share similar problems. Ultimately your solution is a cure to a particular problem right? And then looking for how that group of people are similar and how I can find more of them.
Talk to your customers or clients, with this you can resolve the problems that they are facing,
Thank you for sharing
Not a founder myself but I just had a lovely interview with one a few weeks ago.
She shared her experience with:
The founder is Julie Landeroin and the app is Nudge (https://www.withanudge.com/about)
Watch the full interview here:
https://youtu.be/9v3W9njqoz8
I think it's important to add also that it is very critical to talk to potential customers in right way, CustDev basics. If you ask " will you buy subscription for my hotdogs" surely many people will say Yes, but in fact you should ask open questions without mentioning you ideas, trying to figure out the problem and how people could wish to solve them
Indeed talking to users helps to get you to know the real-world problems faced by them and also feedback on your existing solution. I had shared my post on this: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/my-first-learning-from-a-customer-interview-0f1427dc46
Totally agree: Talk to your customers or your would-be customers!
Find out where they work, live and improve themselves. Meet there where they are. Make their success your priority with your product. Don't lead with your assumptions and keep your questions open ended. Keep in mind what they tell you might not be entirely true too. Validate it over time and iterate.
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