8 ms·

“The mistake you will most likely make as a startup founder is coming up with your own vision of what your product should be instead of getting feedback from ac

“The mistake you will most likely make as a startup founder is coming up with your own vision of what your product should be instead of getting feedback from actual users.”

staunch 8y ago
Also explained very well by Jessica Livingston in "Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing" > "So why wouldn’t all founders start by engaging with users individually? Because it’s hard and demoralizing. Sales gives you a kind of harsh feedback that “marketing” doesn’t. You try to convince someone to use what you’ve built, and they won’t. These conversations are painful, but necessary. I suspect from my experience that founders who want to remain in denial about the inadequacy of their product and/or the difficulty of starting a startup subconsciously prefer the broad and shallow “marketing” approach precisely because they can’t face the work and unpleasant truths they’ll find if they talk to users." https://www.google.com/search?q=jessica%20livingston%20you%20need%20sales%20not%20marketing%20site:wsj.com https://www.google.com/search?q=jessica%20livingston%20you%2... And posted here w/out the paywall: https://genius.com/Jessica-livingston-why-startups-need-to-focus-on-sales-not-marketing-annotated https://genius.com/Jessica-livingston-why-startups-need-to-f... I don't see this essay on https://www.startupschool.org/library https://www.startupschool.org/library and it probably should be at the top.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Sales is grim work for introverts, you can do it but if it's most of what you are doing then you need to question what the point of it is.
  - mayankkaizen 8y ago
    This seems to be the issue with me. I am more like 'laptop' guy who is rather good in researching. I am also keen on observing things. But sales stuffs, cold calling give me chills. How do I overcome it?
    - jstanley 8y ago
      Don't start a business where you have to cold call people, play to your strengths.
    - afarrell 8y ago
      Meet customers in-person at trade shows or festivals things where you aren’t inturrupting them
    - PeterisP 8y ago
      Cooperate or delegate. It needs to be done, and done well, but not necessarily by you. However, this means that you'll need to take in their opinions about the product above your own, since their opinion will be informed by interaction with real customers and yours won't.
    - Kagerjay 8y ago
      B2C products cold calling is not necessary. B2B products cold calling is generally a must. Consider that in mind. I can do sales ok, mostly by faking it, but I will never be as good as extroverts who love that interaction. Its just a brain drain to me many times. Delegate when possible, SOPs, etc. Going to conventions and doing face to face talks is easier than straight cold calling. People are less likely to outright reject you in front of your face I deal with telespammers all the time. The amount of bullshit I hear everyday is amazing. We use a fake alias at work to filter out potential B2B spam as a honeypot, and dump that honeypot data in data broker centers. If it was important I would go looking for their services. The amount of people I hear saying "oh I just spoke with fake_alias yesterday" is a lot. Sometimes people would physically show up saying they had a meeting arranged with "fake_alias". 95% on calls for "fake_alias"has been a waste of time, but 5% there are some nice useful calls and some clients that used data aggregation to find us. I always just ask what their company does, who they are, etc. If they dont answer 100% waste of time. Then google business phonecall spam, asking for verification. I updated googlebusiness listings myself, and I still get these calls. You need to understand how big and small businesses operate, and what your target market is. The approach to B2B sales is very different here. The cold calls that really worked out did their homework and "pretended to be a customer". E.g. hey im a client looking for xyz goods and services do you have this? Oh you dont? My company sells them. Underhanded though but I like the creativity. Most cold calls are done in several stages though. Do hot/cold reads (kind of like a gypsy/psychic) through the receptionist. Youll get alot of information about who makes decisions , what things company is struggling with etc. Receptionists see everything. Press 0 on most telephone systems to reach them. Ask if they are okay with you asking a few questions abot their comlany and how they feel etc. This is for B2B situations where there's only X number of clients out there. Knowledge is power when it comes to doing B2B cold calls. Know the companies weaknesses and play on that
Razengan 8y ago
You have to be a user of your own product to really make it good. Look at Apple. Most of how they got where they are is by Jobs, Ive et al. making what they wanted to see, and nitpicking at everything until they were satisfied. Also: "people don't know what they want until you show it to them." Of course you have to address customers' frustrations, but relying on just "data" and marketing feedback all the time often results in an sterile, rigid product that will always be at risk of disruption by someone with more soul (unless you buy them out with the money you made by playing it safer :)
- goshx 8y ago
  There are a lot of CEO’s that use the Steve Jobs argument to justify their approach of thinking they know what customers want. Chances are you are not really building a product that is reinventing a market and creating new solutions for previously non existing problems, like the iPhone. Then you fall into the hole of thinking you can imagine how people want to solve a well known problem and end up finding out later that, well, you were wrong. I’d urge people to stop thinking they can pull off a Steve Jobs.
  - cardimart 8y ago
    "creating new solutions for previously non existing problems, like the iPhone." I have a problem when I hear things like that. The problems are always there, the needs are always there. They're just satisfied better by the new technology. But the latent needs were there to begin with.
    - goshx 8y ago
      Apps marketplace for cellphones?
  - Razengan 8y ago
    “Pulling off a Steve Jobs” is not really about knowing what customers what – most of the time it will be faster horses – but putting your passion into what YOU recognize a sore lack of. “”Market research”” won’t tell you what’s missing, only existing trends. “Vision” on the other hand is identifying a need for something that doesn’t exist yet. You don’t need to be Steve Jobs to do that, but if you aren’t charismatic (or rich) enough to convince a bunch of other people to work on your vision with/for you, you may only be make what you can make on your own. Which is why I stick to my personal hobby projects. :)
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
But what is the point of operating your own company if not to accomplish your goals of what the company should be? I mean, I get it, you have to make customers happy in order to have a business. But this seems like something different. It seems like saying your goal should be to make money a priori and that defining vision based on feedback is a good way to do that. But what if that’s not your goal? What if your goal is to create a company that embodies a specific mission, like say related to environmentalism or furthering cryonics or actually paying all the taxes you should pay as a civic virtue instead of offshoring to skirt your duty to help others that form the foundation of society that enables your business to exist in the first place. Doing things like this often requires telling customers “no” or declining business all together, in order to impose the vision because you believe the vision is more valuable than short term pivots to satisfy short term client feedback. Another thread of this that I don’t like is that client feedback is often wildly inconsistent and incoherent, not based on realistic understanding of what’s possible. It sounds glib to say listen to feedback, but what does that mean? Which feedback is good? When is it actually going to payoff according to your true goal?
- danenania 8y ago
  I think this is something that’s ridiculously hard in the beginning when your sample size is low, but as you get more users giving feedback, you will probably start to see some clear patterns emerge in what they like, what frustrates them, what features they ask for, etc. While individual pieces of feedback are often all over the place, with more data points, the solution that they all hover around starts to emerge. It can even start to feel ‘obvious’ what your product needs, even though it’s mostly stuff you never could have thought of in isolation. As far as making money vs. mission, I think the issue is just that truly solving an important problem for lots of people is so absurdly hard that very very few entrepreneurs can manage to achieve it without devoting close to 100% of their focus to this challenge. People might love that your company is financially transparent and socially responsible, but that won’t get them to use your product. So thinking much about these things before you start seeing product-market fit feels like putting the cart before the horse.
  - 8y ago
zebraflask 8y ago
This is a chronic problem in product meetings. Well said.

“The mistake you will most likely make as a startup founder is coming up with your own vision of what your product should be instead of getting feedback from actual users.”

staunch 8y ago

Also explained very well by Jessica Livingston in "Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing" > "So why wouldn’t all founders start by engaging with users individually? Because it’s hard and demoralizing. Sales gives you a kind of harsh feedback that “marketing” doesn’t. You try to convince someone to use what you’ve built, and they won’t. These conversations are painful, but necessary. I suspect from my experience that founders who want to remain in denial about the inadequacy of their product and/or the difficulty of starting a startup subconsciously prefer the broad and shallow “marketing” approach precisely because they can’t face the work and unpleasant truths they’ll find if they talk to users." https://www.google.com/search?q=jessica%20livingston%20you%20need%20sales%20not%20marketing%20site:wsj.com https://www.google.com/search?q=jessica%20livingston%20you%2... And posted here w/out the paywall: https://genius.com/Jessica-livingston-why-startups-need-to-focus-on-sales-not-marketing-annotated https://genius.com/Jessica-livingston-why-startups-need-to-f... I don't see this essay on https://www.startupschool.org/library https://www.startupschool.org/library and it probably should be at the top.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Sales is grim work for introverts, you can do it but if it's most of what you are doing then you need to question what the point of it is.
- mayankkaizen 8y ago
  This seems to be the issue with me. I am more like 'laptop' guy who is rather good in researching. I am also keen on observing things. But sales stuffs, cold calling give me chills. How do I overcome it?
  - jstanley 8y ago
    Don't start a business where you have to cold call people, play to your strengths.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    Meet customers in-person at trade shows or festivals things where you aren’t inturrupting them
  - PeterisP 8y ago
    Cooperate or delegate. It needs to be done, and done well, but not necessarily by you. However, this means that you'll need to take in their opinions about the product above your own, since their opinion will be informed by interaction with real customers and yours won't.
  - Kagerjay 8y ago
    B2C products cold calling is not necessary. B2B products cold calling is generally a must. Consider that in mind. I can do sales ok, mostly by faking it, but I will never be as good as extroverts who love that interaction. Its just a brain drain to me many times. Delegate when possible, SOPs, etc. Going to conventions and doing face to face talks is easier than straight cold calling. People are less likely to outright reject you in front of your face I deal with telespammers all the time. The amount of bullshit I hear everyday is amazing. We use a fake alias at work to filter out potential B2B spam as a honeypot, and dump that honeypot data in data broker centers. If it was important I would go looking for their services. The amount of people I hear saying "oh I just spoke with fake_alias yesterday" is a lot. Sometimes people would physically show up saying they had a meeting arranged with "fake_alias". 95% on calls for "fake_alias"has been a waste of time, but 5% there are some nice useful calls and some clients that used data aggregation to find us. I always just ask what their company does, who they are, etc. If they dont answer 100% waste of time. Then google business phonecall spam, asking for verification. I updated googlebusiness listings myself, and I still get these calls. You need to understand how big and small businesses operate, and what your target market is. The approach to B2B sales is very different here. The cold calls that really worked out did their homework and "pretended to be a customer". E.g. hey im a client looking for xyz goods and services do you have this? Oh you dont? My company sells them. Underhanded though but I like the creativity. Most cold calls are done in several stages though. Do hot/cold reads (kind of like a gypsy/psychic) through the receptionist. Youll get alot of information about who makes decisions , what things company is struggling with etc. Receptionists see everything. Press 0 on most telephone systems to reach them. Ask if they are okay with you asking a few questions abot their comlany and how they feel etc. This is for B2B situations where there's only X number of clients out there. Knowledge is power when it comes to doing B2B cold calls. Know the companies weaknesses and play on that

Razengan 8y ago

You have to be a user of your own product to really make it good. Look at Apple. Most of how they got where they are is by Jobs, Ive et al. making what they wanted to see, and nitpicking at everything until they were satisfied. Also: "people don't know what they want until you show it to them." Of course you have to address customers' frustrations, but relying on just "data" and marketing feedback all the time often results in an sterile, rigid product that will always be at risk of disruption by someone with more soul (unless you buy them out with the money you made by playing it safer :)

goshx 8y ago
There are a lot of CEO’s that use the Steve Jobs argument to justify their approach of thinking they know what customers want. Chances are you are not really building a product that is reinventing a market and creating new solutions for previously non existing problems, like the iPhone. Then you fall into the hole of thinking you can imagine how people want to solve a well known problem and end up finding out later that, well, you were wrong. I’d urge people to stop thinking they can pull off a Steve Jobs.
- cardimart 8y ago
  "creating new solutions for previously non existing problems, like the iPhone." I have a problem when I hear things like that. The problems are always there, the needs are always there. They're just satisfied better by the new technology. But the latent needs were there to begin with.
  - goshx 8y ago
    Apps marketplace for cellphones?
- Razengan 8y ago
  “Pulling off a Steve Jobs” is not really about knowing what customers what – most of the time it will be faster horses – but putting your passion into what YOU recognize a sore lack of. “”Market research”” won’t tell you what’s missing, only existing trends. “Vision” on the other hand is identifying a need for something that doesn’t exist yet. You don’t need to be Steve Jobs to do that, but if you aren’t charismatic (or rich) enough to convince a bunch of other people to work on your vision with/for you, you may only be make what you can make on your own. Which is why I stick to my personal hobby projects. :)

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

But what is the point of operating your own company if not to accomplish your goals of what the company should be? I mean, I get it, you have to make customers happy in order to have a business. But this seems like something different. It seems like saying your goal should be to make money a priori and that defining vision based on feedback is a good way to do that. But what if that’s not your goal? What if your goal is to create a company that embodies a specific mission, like say related to environmentalism or furthering cryonics or actually paying all the taxes you should pay as a civic virtue instead of offshoring to skirt your duty to help others that form the foundation of society that enables your business to exist in the first place. Doing things like this often requires telling customers “no” or declining business all together, in order to impose the vision because you believe the vision is more valuable than short term pivots to satisfy short term client feedback. Another thread of this that I don’t like is that client feedback is often wildly inconsistent and incoherent, not based on realistic understanding of what’s possible. It sounds glib to say listen to feedback, but what does that mean? Which feedback is good? When is it actually going to payoff according to your true goal?

danenania 8y ago
I think this is something that’s ridiculously hard in the beginning when your sample size is low, but as you get more users giving feedback, you will probably start to see some clear patterns emerge in what they like, what frustrates them, what features they ask for, etc. While individual pieces of feedback are often all over the place, with more data points, the solution that they all hover around starts to emerge. It can even start to feel ‘obvious’ what your product needs, even though it’s mostly stuff you never could have thought of in isolation. As far as making money vs. mission, I think the issue is just that truly solving an important problem for lots of people is so absurdly hard that very very few entrepreneurs can manage to achieve it without devoting close to 100% of their focus to this challenge. People might love that your company is financially transparent and socially responsible, but that won’t get them to use your product. So thinking much about these things before you start seeing product-market fit feels like putting the cart before the horse.
- 8y ago

zebraflask 8y ago

This is a chronic problem in product meetings. Well said.