7 ms·

> launching a mediocre product as soon as possible, and then talking to customers and iterating, is much better than waiting to build the “perfect” product. Ye

> launching a mediocre product as soon as possible, and then talking to customers and iterating, is much better than waiting to build the “perfect” product. Yes, yes and yes. But this is so easy said but still a struggle and need to be put into perspective. Let's say we do a super simple business, eg a resume writing service on scale (just for the sake of having a simple example). To be ready to reach out to first customers we need to... - Setup a landing page, takes ten minutes with Squarespace but to get all the copy and visuals right or least good enough for some first testing, min one day, rather three to five - Setup and prefill all social media channels, should take half a day incl getting the first 25 likes in order to save the name - Create the first ads and iterate to some ads which actually convert at good CTRs/CPCs take multiple days because you need to let a campaign run at least for one day; so lets assume another five days So just to test this stupid-simple agency business properly we need already two weeks. Now imagine, you do something a bit more sophisticated, an actual app/SaaS/game/bot/whatever, you still need minimum two weeks for the 'Marketing' stuff before plus the time for the actual app. And being mediocre doesn't work in highly competitive markets. So, if you are able to (1) build a first testable thing in 2-4 weeks you are very good. And you are even better if (2) you have the power and positivity to do 12 tests per year because you need more than one shot.

briandear 9y ago
I agree so much! My little company does mental health practice management and communications yet it’s incredible hard to “start small” because your being judged against all the incumbents. Even if you have some clever tech (we do,) nobody wants to use it if you don’t at least compare somewhat to the existing competition. If I were building photo sharing in 2006, maybe that small, sloppy and iterative approach would work great, but when you’re taking on entrenched incumbents, it’s hard, especially in a space related to health. I guess you could build one feature and be really great at it, but users are rarely shopping for that specific feature, especially if it’s novel and they don’t realize they need it yet.
- erispoe 9y ago
  > it’s incredible hard to “start small” because your being judged against all the incumbents Then you're probably addressing the wrong market. I found _The Innovator's Solution_[1] by Clayton Christensen pretty useful to understand that. You want to address a market that is underserved or not served at all by the existing big players. Often, it's by providing a service that is much simpler, much less powerful, but cheaper and/or more accessible than the existing solutions. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaining-Successful/dp/1422196577 https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaini...
- wpietri 9y ago
  Are you sure you're a startup, then? If you're going to build the kind of thing your future clients are already buying, then it sounds more like a normal new business to me. Startups are pursuing some sort of radical improvement on the status quo. For that, there should be early adopters, people who care a great deal about your kind of improvement. People who are willing to sacrifice the normal kind of good for your specific kind of great. There's nothing wrong with being a new business, with wanting to deliver a mousetrap that's 20% better than existing mousetraps. But it's a very different kind of thing than doing a startup, and I think it's dangerous to apply one sort of conventional wisdom to the other.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Mz 9y ago
    Google was not the first search engine. A better version of an existing thing can hit big growth. Rate of growth seems to be what people are talking about when they distinguish startups from normal new businesses. It isn't actually necessary for it to be some new fangled thingamajig the likes of which the world has never seen before.
    - wpietri 9y ago
      My definition of a startup is the same as Blank's: "an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model." So I'd call Google a startup because they were radically reinventing the search model. It's important for briandear to decide which he's going for. The behaviors appropriate for a startup by Blank's definition are different than those needed for a new business. Even fast-growing new businesses are different than startups, because they're not trying to do something particularly innovative. Take Google as an example. If their goal was to be 20% better than the average search company of the day, then they would have gone for breadth of content first, because you couldn't compete in the search market without good general-audience results. Instead, their first target was Stanford users, and their second was Linux users. Instead of investing in deep ops cost reduction, which became a huge strategic advantage, they would have used commodity hardware and tools. They wouldn't have tried a variety of revenue models, seeing which ones best suited them; they would have aped existing solutions. Google's approach is exactly the playbook that Blank, et al, recommend for startups: find early adopters and iterate until you can knock something out of the park for them. Then use that feedback loop to build a broader product while extending your market reach. Eventually you find product-market fit; if you're fast you can entirely take over a market before you have real competition. But that's a terrible strategy to use when you're just looking to be another provider of an existing commodity, even if you want to grow quickly. Look at the top 5 fastest growing restaurants: Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, Jersey Mike's Subs, Marco's Pizza, Wingstop Chicken, and Chick Fil-A. [1] None of these are particularly innovative companies. They sell known products to known audiences using known methods. I worked at a McDonald's as a teen, and I'm sure I could walk behind the counter at any one of those restaurants and jump into any of the line jobs there. Both are fine kinds of companies to start. You've just got to use different techniques, so you have to know which you're doing. [1] from http://www.nrn.com/top-100-restaurants/2017-top-100-top-10-fastest-growing-chains http://www.nrn.com/top-100-restaurants/2017-top-100-top-10-f...
- Mz 9y ago
  Anything in health care is hard, in part due to HIPAA. You are welcome to join Health Techies: https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!forum/health-techies https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!forum/health...
rgbrenner 9y ago
Who said anything about social media, and facebook likes, and advertising. Just stop. That isn't your product. If your product is just a squarespace page... then that's the entire part of that step. Do that, and then go talk to your customers. The rest of that is just procrastination, and frankly a waste of time and money at that stage... because there's no way you have product market fit that early, so why are you buying ads?
- akelly 9y ago
  The devils advocate position is that without a social media presence or ads, it can be difficult for some companies to find customers to talk to.
  - jaggederest 9y ago
    One of the things that I have learned the hard way is that if you don't have a channel to get at least initial customers by some means besides PPC advertising, you're unlikely to succeed. One of the early competitive advantages you need to have is in "finding customers to talk to".
    - hohenheim 9y ago
      "finding customers to talk to": The so called seed.
- borplk 9y ago
  "go talk to your customers" is much easier said than done.
  - grey-area 9y ago
    If you can’t identify and/or talk to customers, that is also a signal.
    - marcus_holmes 9y ago
laktek 9y ago
I struggled with this building Pragma. I was going to a crowded market with established incumbents. Most early talks with customers would always lead to "How is it better than Wordpress, Webflow, Squarespace, etc." So I started to feel we have to tick all the boxes and product never felt shippable. However, two weeks ago I took a step back and thought what if we can ship a product in 48 hours and get people to pay. The result of it was Page.REST. In reality, it still took 7 days to launch it properly, but it had 10 people paid customers after the first day in business. That was a revelation to me and gave me a different perception of the approach. I can attest being in the market is the best way you could learn and iterate a product (no matter how simple & rough the early version looks). PS: I blogged some of my learnings from shipping Page.REST - https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest/ https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest...
- justboxing 9y ago
  This is cool! Thank you for the detailed blog post. Very informative. Now to scale Page.REST... !
  - chrift 9y ago
    Really good idea, a much simpler and lighter solution than import.io Do you use proxies to stop your requests getting blocked or are you just going balls to the wall and making requests from your server's ip(s)?
adamqureshi 9y ago
https://onlyusedtesla.com/ https://onlyusedtesla.com/ I set up a landing page using WP with form and a basic email capture. I got 3 listings from tesla forums. I got a BUNCH of emails. I started using ambush tactics to get customers to list their for sale used tesla with me for free while in beta. Saying stuff like " we have a concentrated buyer exposure , notice buyers not shoppers. I used FB messenger for communications and email. I started running ads on FB for each listing. I started charging customers $150 for each sold vehicle, manually. Now 6 months later, i am building a new web app using VueJS hosted on DO. I tested charging from the get go and made a sale today. $50 to sign up list $50 to boost on FB. Boost on FB cost me like $5/$10. You can target location , interest , behaviors. I am working on new features . I made $150/avg just following up with customers , i was ranking first page organic for "buy a used tesla" kinda got lucky , who knows. I just wanna grab a "slice" from cars,autotrader they can keep the pie. customers started comparing my rinky/dink Wp site to cars, auto trader , they liked the simplicity and speed. I adopted the mentality NOBODY IS GONNA FUND YOU. Its everyman for himself. Good LUCKY!
- jhgaylor 9y ago
  Nice! I wish I saw the battery size on each listing over by the price and mileage though. One of the first ones I ready even said it was both a 60 and a 90 in the description.
  - adamqureshi 9y ago
    Battery size is on the new design! its gonna be in the main headline.
- tomerbd 9y ago
  can you please say which wordpress theme you use and is it a WP plugin to do the listing and filtering? (if not now what was it initially?) thanks..
  - adamqureshi 9y ago
    Custom design WP as cms only.
tomerbd 9y ago
how do you get the first 25 likes, do you reach out to people showing the facebook page? paid boost?
- brianwawok 9y ago
  Friends and family round!

briandear 9y ago

I agree so much! My little company does mental health practice management and communications yet it’s incredible hard to “start small” because your being judged against all the incumbents. Even if you have some clever tech (we do,) nobody wants to use it if you don’t at least compare somewhat to the existing competition. If I were building photo sharing in 2006, maybe that small, sloppy and iterative approach would work great, but when you’re taking on entrenched incumbents, it’s hard, especially in a space related to health. I guess you could build one feature and be really great at it, but users are rarely shopping for that specific feature, especially if it’s novel and they don’t realize they need it yet.

erispoe 9y ago
> it’s incredible hard to “start small” because your being judged against all the incumbents Then you're probably addressing the wrong market. I found _The Innovator's Solution_[1] by Clayton Christensen pretty useful to understand that. You want to address a market that is underserved or not served at all by the existing big players. Often, it's by providing a service that is much simpler, much less powerful, but cheaper and/or more accessible than the existing solutions. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaining-Successful/dp/1422196577 https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Solution-Creating-Sustaini...
wpietri 9y ago
Are you sure you're a startup, then? If you're going to build the kind of thing your future clients are already buying, then it sounds more like a normal new business to me. Startups are pursuing some sort of radical improvement on the status quo. For that, there should be early adopters, people who care a great deal about your kind of improvement. People who are willing to sacrifice the normal kind of good for your specific kind of great. There's nothing wrong with being a new business, with wanting to deliver a mousetrap that's 20% better than existing mousetraps. But it's a very different kind of thing than doing a startup, and I think it's dangerous to apply one sort of conventional wisdom to the other.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Mz 9y ago
  Google was not the first search engine. A better version of an existing thing can hit big growth. Rate of growth seems to be what people are talking about when they distinguish startups from normal new businesses. It isn't actually necessary for it to be some new fangled thingamajig the likes of which the world has never seen before.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    My definition of a startup is the same as Blank's: "an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model." So I'd call Google a startup because they were radically reinventing the search model. It's important for briandear to decide which he's going for. The behaviors appropriate for a startup by Blank's definition are different than those needed for a new business. Even fast-growing new businesses are different than startups, because they're not trying to do something particularly innovative. Take Google as an example. If their goal was to be 20% better than the average search company of the day, then they would have gone for breadth of content first, because you couldn't compete in the search market without good general-audience results. Instead, their first target was Stanford users, and their second was Linux users. Instead of investing in deep ops cost reduction, which became a huge strategic advantage, they would have used commodity hardware and tools. They wouldn't have tried a variety of revenue models, seeing which ones best suited them; they would have aped existing solutions. Google's approach is exactly the playbook that Blank, et al, recommend for startups: find early adopters and iterate until you can knock something out of the park for them. Then use that feedback loop to build a broader product while extending your market reach. Eventually you find product-market fit; if you're fast you can entirely take over a market before you have real competition. But that's a terrible strategy to use when you're just looking to be another provider of an existing commodity, even if you want to grow quickly. Look at the top 5 fastest growing restaurants: Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, Jersey Mike's Subs, Marco's Pizza, Wingstop Chicken, and Chick Fil-A. [1] None of these are particularly innovative companies. They sell known products to known audiences using known methods. I worked at a McDonald's as a teen, and I'm sure I could walk behind the counter at any one of those restaurants and jump into any of the line jobs there. Both are fine kinds of companies to start. You've just got to use different techniques, so you have to know which you're doing. [1] from http://www.nrn.com/top-100-restaurants/2017-top-100-top-10-fastest-growing-chains http://www.nrn.com/top-100-restaurants/2017-top-100-top-10-f...
Mz 9y ago
Anything in health care is hard, in part due to HIPAA. You are welcome to join Health Techies: https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!forum/health-techies https://groups.google.com/forum/?nomobile=true#!forum/health...

rgbrenner 9y ago

Who said anything about social media, and facebook likes, and advertising. Just stop. That isn't your product. If your product is just a squarespace page... then that's the entire part of that step. Do that, and then go talk to your customers. The rest of that is just procrastination, and frankly a waste of time and money at that stage... because there's no way you have product market fit that early, so why are you buying ads?

akelly 9y ago
The devils advocate position is that without a social media presence or ads, it can be difficult for some companies to find customers to talk to.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  One of the things that I have learned the hard way is that if you don't have a channel to get at least initial customers by some means besides PPC advertising, you're unlikely to succeed. One of the early competitive advantages you need to have is in "finding customers to talk to".
  - hohenheim 9y ago
    "finding customers to talk to": The so called seed.
borplk 9y ago
"go talk to your customers" is much easier said than done.
- grey-area 9y ago
  If you can’t identify and/or talk to customers, that is also a signal.
  - marcus_holmes 9y ago

laktek 9y ago

I struggled with this building Pragma. I was going to a crowded market with established incumbents. Most early talks with customers would always lead to "How is it better than Wordpress, Webflow, Squarespace, etc." So I started to feel we have to tick all the boxes and product never felt shippable. However, two weeks ago I took a step back and thought what if we can ship a product in 48 hours and get people to pay. The result of it was Page.REST. In reality, it still took 7 days to launch it properly, but it had 10 people paid customers after the first day in business. That was a revelation to me and gave me a different perception of the approach. I can attest being in the market is the best way you could learn and iterate a product (no matter how simple & rough the early version looks). PS: I blogged some of my learnings from shipping Page.REST - https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest/ https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest...

justboxing 9y ago
This is cool! Thank you for the detailed blog post. Very informative. Now to scale Page.REST... !
- chrift 9y ago
  Really good idea, a much simpler and lighter solution than import.io Do you use proxies to stop your requests getting blocked or are you just going balls to the wall and making requests from your server's ip(s)?

adamqureshi 9y ago

https://onlyusedtesla.com/ https://onlyusedtesla.com/ I set up a landing page using WP with form and a basic email capture. I got 3 listings from tesla forums. I got a BUNCH of emails. I started using ambush tactics to get customers to list their for sale used tesla with me for free while in beta. Saying stuff like " we have a concentrated buyer exposure , notice buyers not shoppers. I used FB messenger for communications and email. I started running ads on FB for each listing. I started charging customers $150 for each sold vehicle, manually. Now 6 months later, i am building a new web app using VueJS hosted on DO. I tested charging from the get go and made a sale today. $50 to sign up list $50 to boost on FB. Boost on FB cost me like $5/$10. You can target location , interest , behaviors. I am working on new features . I made $150/avg just following up with customers , i was ranking first page organic for "buy a used tesla" kinda got lucky , who knows. I just wanna grab a "slice" from cars,autotrader they can keep the pie. customers started comparing my rinky/dink Wp site to cars, auto trader , they liked the simplicity and speed. I adopted the mentality NOBODY IS GONNA FUND YOU. Its everyman for himself. Good LUCKY!

jhgaylor 9y ago
Nice! I wish I saw the battery size on each listing over by the price and mileage though. One of the first ones I ready even said it was both a 60 and a 90 in the description.
- adamqureshi 9y ago
  Battery size is on the new design! its gonna be in the main headline.
tomerbd 9y ago
can you please say which wordpress theme you use and is it a WP plugin to do the listing and filtering? (if not now what was it initially?) thanks..
- adamqureshi 9y ago
  Custom design WP as cms only.

tomerbd 9y ago

how do you get the first 25 likes, do you reach out to people showing the facebook page? paid boost?

brianwawok 9y ago
Friends and family round!