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If you build it, they will not come! Scream it in a loud voice, IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL NOT COME! You are going to have to build it, find them, plead with

If you build it, they will not come! Scream it in a loud voice, IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL NOT COME! You are going to have to build it, find them, plead with them, fight their refusals and shove it down their throat. There are many unknown "unicorns" that currently exist as code. The code is done, there's just no users, because the world doesn't even know it's a thing and those that do know have not being convinced that it's needed. My opinion, my advice. Forget the code, find the customers/market first. A software developer with complete code and no customers is just a software developer. A business person with tons of customers and no software/product is in business. So decide if you want to be in business or to be a software developer. I suspect that most developers just dream about business as a means of escape from their day to day reality, but secretly don't even want to be in business, they love writing code more than being in business.

educar 10y ago
In my experience, finding customers without code works only for specific products. Best of luck trying to find customers for stripe or intercom without any code. Better advice is to work on them in parallel.
ohstopitu 10y ago
I have seen this advice throughout this thread - "first find customers, and then build it" but I can't seem to understand the following: 1. why will those customers wait for your software? 2. what if you delay launching your software? 3. As a software dev, I've noticed that 90% of the product is built in 10% of the time. However, it's the final 10% that make/break it - how do you account for that (as you have already promised your future customers a product that you have yet to build) ?
- keenrodent 10y ago
  When people say, "first find customers, then build it", they mean find people or businesses with problems that they will pay you to solve. With this in mind, your questions have sensible answers: Customers will wait for your software because their problems are not being addressed in the marketplace. The consequences of launch delay are that you erode your credibility and allow opportunities for competitors. You will want customers to start that will work with you closely so that as you continuously deploy your always-working solution, they see benefit with every release. The second highest compliment you can get is "Your product just gets better and better". The highest complement you can get is payment.
- dceddia 10y ago
  I try to think of the "market" as a pond. The customers are the fish. If you manage to catch a few fish, but can't hold on to them because your product isn't ready yet, it's not the end of the world. At that point, you know that some of the fish like your bait, and there are probably more out there who will want it when the product is ready.
- softwarefounder 10y ago
  Agreed. The advice should be. 1) Build an MVP, and get it to beta. 2) _Then_ get customers to try it out (give them an incentive, such as giving it to them for free). This works well with individuals, or small businesses. Larger company's won't give you the time of day, and you probably want to wait until you have some sort of following before you approach them; or you'll get squashed. 3) Get feedback. 4) Repeat steps 2/3 until your out of beta.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
  It's also key to know the software can really solve the problem. Some primitive folks think computers are magic, but it is human sacrifice that makes their religion work at all.
harry-wood 10y ago
On the other hand I've encountered folks who claim to be forming a start up. They've got the name and the logo. They've got the whole pitch ready. They sound enthusiastic and passionate. But... they still have to find a technical person to actually build it. They basically have nothing. And I often think there are too many people going around spouting wisdom for example about how you _must_ let customers and market demand drive your product design before writing a line of code. It's actually not true. There's plenty of good businesses which are built upon a fairly deep technical idea, which must have required a lot of development work in isolation before it saw the light of day. ...but I agree it's also a trap leading the death of many unknown unicorns.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  >On the other hand I've encountered folks who claim to be forming a start up. They've got the name and the logo. They've got the whole pitch ready. They sound enthusiastic and passionate. But... they still have to find a technical person to actually build it. They basically have nothing. These people are usually imposters who are asking for things that are totally unrealistic or generating interest for a concept that doesn't make any sense from a technical perspective. They have an idea and assume it can be done. It's sort of like saying "Let's build a perpetual motion machine." Everyone is really interested in it, because it's a total fantasy. If the idea is practical, it's usually not hard to find someone who will implement it. As a technical person, you know the limits. That means that when you go out and sell people or kick up interest, it will be for something that's at least plausible. The frank truth is that software and technical work is relatively cheap. It cannot be the basis of your business because someone can come in and clone your product after you've done the hard work of introducing an innovative product and establishing/educating the market (I know because this happened to my business). It doesn't matter if the clone is way worse than your product, because people are only looking at the very high level. If the clone can provide the basic functionality 20% of the time as opposed to your 99% of the time, if combined with substantive marketing, that's more than enough to win. Anyone who has done any amount of product research knows that the good products are almost never the most common ones. Your brand, reputation, and intellectual property are 100x more valuable than any software or technical feat. Consider that Google and Facebook could lock 4 engineers in a closet for a year and come out with almost any software they wanted for around $1 million. Ask yourself why, then, they pay $1B+ for companies like Whatsapp and Instagram. It's certainly not because it's too complex to figure out photo sharing or text messaging. They want the brand and the users that come with it, and it's that simple. The one thing that is most expensive in business is user attention and loyalty. There are many apps that dominated app stores and were probably hopeful that they would be bought by Google/Apple and achieve fame and fortune, only to find that in the next iteration of the OS, they had been "NetScaped"; their core functionality baked into the OS either as an extension of an existing app (many souped-up camera and photo effects apps) or as a new bundled app (e.g., Keep). The most important thing for tech entrepreneurs to understand is that while the technology is important and can give an edge, it is not the main value in your business. The main value will always be the brand and the users that come with it (and, as intimated above, beware of platform vendors, because they will always have the option to divert most of your user base to a first-party clone). Technology is comparatively cheap.
c0achmcguirk 10y ago
Yes! 1,000 times this. Everyone thinks that when they announce their product is released that they'll have hundreds of signups the minute you launch. What really happens is no one notices or cares. You have to put on your sales hat before you launch.
nicholas73 10y ago
I'm doing half and half. I'm building the core functions first, which is easily demo'd. Then once I get enough interest, then I'll build the app that handles user accounts.

educar 10y ago

In my experience, finding customers without code works only for specific products. Best of luck trying to find customers for stripe or intercom without any code. Better advice is to work on them in parallel.

ohstopitu 10y ago

I have seen this advice throughout this thread - "first find customers, and then build it" but I can't seem to understand the following: 1. why will those customers wait for your software? 2. what if you delay launching your software? 3. As a software dev, I've noticed that 90% of the product is built in 10% of the time. However, it's the final 10% that make/break it - how do you account for that (as you have already promised your future customers a product that you have yet to build) ?

keenrodent 10y ago
When people say, "first find customers, then build it", they mean find people or businesses with problems that they will pay you to solve. With this in mind, your questions have sensible answers: Customers will wait for your software because their problems are not being addressed in the marketplace. The consequences of launch delay are that you erode your credibility and allow opportunities for competitors. You will want customers to start that will work with you closely so that as you continuously deploy your always-working solution, they see benefit with every release. The second highest compliment you can get is "Your product just gets better and better". The highest complement you can get is payment.
dceddia 10y ago
I try to think of the "market" as a pond. The customers are the fish. If you manage to catch a few fish, but can't hold on to them because your product isn't ready yet, it's not the end of the world. At that point, you know that some of the fish like your bait, and there are probably more out there who will want it when the product is ready.
softwarefounder 10y ago
Agreed. The advice should be. 1) Build an MVP, and get it to beta. 2) _Then_ get customers to try it out (give them an incentive, such as giving it to them for free). This works well with individuals, or small businesses. Larger company's won't give you the time of day, and you probably want to wait until you have some sort of following before you approach them; or you'll get squashed. 3) Get feedback. 4) Repeat steps 2/3 until your out of beta.
0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
It's also key to know the software can really solve the problem. Some primitive folks think computers are magic, but it is human sacrifice that makes their religion work at all.

harry-wood 10y ago

On the other hand I've encountered folks who claim to be forming a start up. They've got the name and the logo. They've got the whole pitch ready. They sound enthusiastic and passionate. But... they still have to find a technical person to actually build it. They basically have nothing. And I often think there are too many people going around spouting wisdom for example about how you _must_ let customers and market demand drive your product design before writing a line of code. It's actually not true. There's plenty of good businesses which are built upon a fairly deep technical idea, which must have required a lot of development work in isolation before it saw the light of day. ...but I agree it's also a trap leading the death of many unknown unicorns.

cookiecaper 10y ago
>On the other hand I've encountered folks who claim to be forming a start up. They've got the name and the logo. They've got the whole pitch ready. They sound enthusiastic and passionate. But... they still have to find a technical person to actually build it. They basically have nothing. These people are usually imposters who are asking for things that are totally unrealistic or generating interest for a concept that doesn't make any sense from a technical perspective. They have an idea and assume it can be done. It's sort of like saying "Let's build a perpetual motion machine." Everyone is really interested in it, because it's a total fantasy. If the idea is practical, it's usually not hard to find someone who will implement it. As a technical person, you know the limits. That means that when you go out and sell people or kick up interest, it will be for something that's at least plausible. The frank truth is that software and technical work is relatively cheap. It cannot be the basis of your business because someone can come in and clone your product after you've done the hard work of introducing an innovative product and establishing/educating the market (I know because this happened to my business). It doesn't matter if the clone is way worse than your product, because people are only looking at the very high level. If the clone can provide the basic functionality 20% of the time as opposed to your 99% of the time, if combined with substantive marketing, that's more than enough to win. Anyone who has done any amount of product research knows that the good products are almost never the most common ones. Your brand, reputation, and intellectual property are 100x more valuable than any software or technical feat. Consider that Google and Facebook could lock 4 engineers in a closet for a year and come out with almost any software they wanted for around $1 million. Ask yourself why, then, they pay $1B+ for companies like Whatsapp and Instagram. It's certainly not because it's too complex to figure out photo sharing or text messaging. They want the brand and the users that come with it, and it's that simple. The one thing that is most expensive in business is user attention and loyalty. There are many apps that dominated app stores and were probably hopeful that they would be bought by Google/Apple and achieve fame and fortune, only to find that in the next iteration of the OS, they had been "NetScaped"; their core functionality baked into the OS either as an extension of an existing app (many souped-up camera and photo effects apps) or as a new bundled app (e.g., Keep). The most important thing for tech entrepreneurs to understand is that while the technology is important and can give an edge, it is not the main value in your business. The main value will always be the brand and the users that come with it (and, as intimated above, beware of platform vendors, because they will always have the option to divert most of your user base to a first-party clone). Technology is comparatively cheap.

c0achmcguirk 10y ago

Yes! 1,000 times this. Everyone thinks that when they announce their product is released that they'll have hundreds of signups the minute you launch. What really happens is no one notices or cares. You have to put on your sales hat before you launch.

nicholas73 10y ago

I'm doing half and half. I'm building the core functions first, which is easily demo'd. Then once I get enough interest, then I'll build the app that handles user accounts.