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My dad always told me the first rule of business is "know your customer." I don't really want to rag on someone who's clearly more successful and experienced t
by unlinked_dll 7y ago
My dad always told me the first rule of business is "know your customer."
I don't really want to rag on someone who's clearly more successful and experienced than me but I read this article and I don't know what it's trying to say beyond, "know your customer."
Another quote from him, "you don't know a market until you're in it."
It's impossible to tell what product market fit is unless you're actually out there trying to fit something into it a real market. Like with the Lyft example (as presented) screams to me like pure luck. How did they know the market valued those things? How did they evaluate which elements had the best ROI to get right, and how to prioritize?
I just feel like this article is shockingly light on insight. But then again, we often need someone to smack us with common sense. On the other hand, most smart people know when they're pounding a square peg into a misshapen hole. The hard part is knowing what shape the hole is or if it even exists, and that's the kind of content I wish this article had more of.
Tangent: is there a market for a book full of business-isms and one liners? I've been pushing my dad to write one for years...
- PacifyFish 7y agoHere’s one data point: I would not buy a book with thousands of business one-liners such as “know your customer”
- jiveturkey 7y ago> My dad always told me the first rule of business is "know your customer." Is your dad a prominent VC?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mathattack 7y agoHelp him write the book even if the market is just you and your kids. Do it before he’s too old to remember. Each of my parents went to the grave with an unwritten book still inside them.
- scarejunba 7y agoThe value of "know your customer" style lines is that they allow people to communicate to each other about things they already know. Those lines are not useful to anyone who doesn't know them because knowing what "know your customer" really means is the important thing. I encountered the phrase when I was 14 running a managed web hosting company. It didn't help because I didn't know how to know my customer. I wouldn't buy a book like that because I know it would be completely useless since it has no actionable advice for me. That's how it is for me.