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Ok Dropbox. I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non-existent products and get signups as some kind of validation. Consumer
by xwdv 6y ago
Ok Dropbox.
I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non-existent products and get signups as some kind of validation.
Consumers patience will wear thin when they find pretty much every new startup pulls the same crap, until interest in new startups reaches all time lows and this strategy doesn’t work anymore.
Then the only way to validate things will be the old fashioned way: take a risk and build shit up front. If it doesn’t sell that’s your problem, the consumer doesn’t care. Not everyone is entitled to cheap and easy validation.
Don’t fake, just make.
- serf 6y ago>I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non-existent products and get signups as some kind of validation. me too. It triggered myself into pondering whether or not humanity will ever actually become less responsive to advertising as a whole simply because of previous experience -- but then I brushed the notion aside, figuring that advertisement psychology is more-or-less all-powerful.
- IanCal 6y ago> Consumers patience will wear thin Feels a little odd using a massively successful example from a decade ago, with it still being used as a technique with success to say patience will wear thin.
- xwdv 6y agoThat’s a decade ago when the technique was novel. Imagine a world where every new product you see may or may not exist, because validation tests are rampant. Until you’re actually using the product yourself you’ll never trust that it’s real.
- Permit 6y ago> I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non-existent products and get signups as some kind of validation. Why? I'd suggest they take it one step further: Offer discounted pre-orders and use that to measure if people are interested. The only way to be sure that someone is willing to pay for what you're building is to ask them to pay for it. > Then the only way to validate things will be the old fashioned way: take a risk and build shit up front. This is bad advice. You should never take on risk that you don't have to. A startup is full of anticipated and unanticipated risks, there is no reason to expose yourself to even more. For reference, we tried your approach at my first startup. We built something people found really cool but that no one wanted to pay for. We wasted eight months doing this. Our next product was launched with minimal tech investment (1-2 weeks of development) and accepted pre-orders. We made $x,xxx this way and things went very well. If we hadn't sold enough we would have refunded all of our pre-orders and chose to work on something that people actually wanted.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xwdv 6y agoAs a consumer, you want startups to build stuff up front. That way you can immediately tell if they executed correctly and you want to spend money. Startups though don’t want to build shit. They want to pass on the risk of a failed product to the consumer. They’ll get consumers hopes up and then say “whoops, not enough people wanted this so we’re not building it too bad” This is also why even if you do build something people might not even use it until you reach a certain level of success because consumers don’t want to invest time and money into some product that can disappear overnight.
- volkk 6y agohonestly, i've stopped paying attention to products that startups fake launch. i'm sure im not the only one and also not the only one that's worked in the sphere and realizes just how poorly built/thought out everything is. moviepass is a prime example. your sign up pages that lead to nothing/nowhere because you got demotivated or too lazy or didn't find funding or the other plethora of reasons are exactly why i ignore them all and close out of the tab. your "secretive" coming soon pages are stuck in 2013. if this is a product that is serious/legitimate, then i'm sure i'll hear about it through friends, HN or TC or something. i'm starting to think that the "startup" field is mostly populated by people who do it just to put "CEO/Founder" in their linkedin bio.
- SkyPuncher 6y ago> Don’t fake, just make. There's nothing fake about this though. I work at a thriving startup and we share videos of upcoming features and prototypes with customers and prospects pretty regularly. Ultimately, we want to build the product our customers want and our customers want us to build them a product they want. This type of stuff lets us iterate significantly more quickly. A designer can mockup complex features in hours/days. Dev time would be days/weeks. In a week, we can iterate with a customer to get them a feature they want. It'd take months to "just make it" and get to the same point.
- LunaSea 6y agoWhat happens if you can't deliver?
- SkyPuncher 6y agoWe already have a core product so that's already consistently delivering value. If we don't deliver on one thing, it's likely because we're improving value elsewhere.
- xwdv 6y agoOr just looking to keep customers hooked through false promises.
- alexbanks 6y agoWithout being aggressive or overly meta, your profile literally says "Ethically challenged." It seems strange to draw this line in the sand.