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Good lessons. But so many common mistakes To summarize: 1) Build something people really need, not a nice-to-have 2) Keeping customers is more important than

Good lessons. But so many common mistakes To summarize: 1) Build something people really need, not a nice-to-have 2) Keeping customers is more important than just acquiring them 3) If you're not keeping your customers that means they don't want or need what you have 4) Changing people's behavior is really hard. Unless you have a significant amount of marketing budget, don't try to change people 5) "Distribution" is key. I have a hard time with the word "distribution" when often people mean "marketing" or "promotion" or "channels". That's what is usually meant. If you can't get an audience with the people you are trying to sell to, you might as well be invisible. I still don't get why people use the awkward term distribution for this. 6) You have to be better than what's already out there. If you're just as good, or worse, than the alternatives, then it's going to be really hard to make a sale. Alternatives don't mean direct competition. Anything that is an alternative for a customer to buy or use your product is real competition. This is especially the case if you're requiring the customer to change their habits to switch to your offering. You have to be MUCH better than the status quo and alternatives to do that. 7) Know who your customer is. Your user might not be your customer. Your customer might not have the itch to scratch even if the user does. A lot of these are pretty common reasons for business failure but I suppose everyone has to go through their own personal challenges to internalize them.

jfengel 5y ago
Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need". People buy stuff they don't need all the time. Games and other entertainment are the very definition of "nice to have", and they're vast markets. Even business tools are usually not "needs" if all they do is improve an existing product. It's incredibly hard to know what will attract people. Even if you know categorically that a thing will make their lives better, people often won't get it, and instead spend their money on something objectively useless. It seems to be luck as much as anything else, being in the right place at the right time. It catches a "buzz" for whatever reason and becomes popular, or fails to and doesn't. Knowing it beforehand would be great, but nobody ever does.
- rexreed 5y ago
  If you're trying to run a business, then yes, it needs to be something people need, because you're asking people to give up something of value to them. Money and/or time. If you ask for something of value you have to provide something of value in return. Of course, the need can be anything that people find valuable. It could be a product or a service or just a way to stay connected or entertainment. Whatever it is, it has to be something people "need" from a value perspective, if you are planning to make a business out of it. Of course, you don't have to run a business. Many people do things out of their own interests that are never turned into businesses, and certainly humanity has been doing that for millenia. You don't have to turn it into a business. The points above are relevant to running a successful business.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    I don't really understand your definition of need. You define a 'need' as anything that people find valuable, but I would classify 'nice to have' as also being things someone finds valuable. How do you distinguish something that is a 'nice to have' and a 'need'?
    - mdorazio 5y ago
      Nice to have is a luxury - it doesn't solve any actual problem people have, it just make life a little bit nicer. Need is an actual value proposition - people are already spending time or money to do a thing that you can do better. I think you're using the rigid definition of "need" like the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy, but in the business world "need" is more value driven, or in the B2C side closer to the top of the hierarchy.
      - cortesoft 5y ago
        That makes sense, but the examples the person I responded to used examples that don't fit with what you said.
    - brianwawok 5y ago
mdorazio 5y ago
To your #5, I find that developers tend to be allergic to the term "marketing" because it's easy to think it's a waste of money or the department of flashy do-nothings if you've never tried to actually build a business yourself.
- dnautics 5y ago
  I doubt that's why they are allergic to it. Perhaps I'm projecting, but I suspect that developers have seen their fair share of products which succeed (for some measure of succeed, e.g. "raised a round" or "founders cashed out") with only marketing and a crap or, worse, vaporware product. It's a very common and easy fallacious inference to go from there to "all marketing is bad", especially in a field where there are a handful of success stories (e.g. craigslist) where the success was built with very little or no marketing, and "the product spoke for itself".
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    Marketing on a bad product sometimes lets you make money. No marketing on a good product seldom lets you be successful. The mistake of founders is to let burns from the first bucket, stop the second from having a chance.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      That's a paraphrase of what I wrote
- wsc981 5y ago
  I'd say it's also just not fun. For example setting up a product page on Steam and the iOS AppStore is just a royal pain for me, and I would think most developers would feel the same. It's much more fun to code.
kylebolt 5y ago
Yes great re-cap, thank you! Even though I've read and heard about these common mistakes, sometimes we have to learn by doing to truly find out if they apply to our use case.
ensiferum 5y ago
Most of these fall under the term "product - market fit". All key points really. Fail at the these and it's an uphill battle to acquire and esp. Retain customers. Good stuff to read "the mom test" and "sell more faster".
blacktriangle 5y ago
Number 7 is a subtle but huge problem. I ran into this way back when I was trying to sell a small, education-focused GIS system I wrote as an alternative to the monstrosity that is ArcGIS. Students loved it since it was easy to use (only had maybe 5% of the functionality of ArcGIS, but it was the functionality that covered 90% of basic analysis.) The department heads I spoke to loved the idea since it was drastically cheaper than Arc, they could push the cost to the student (less than a textbook) rather than maintain ESRI contracts. The problem was that the decision maker, ie the real customer, was the professor, who did not experience either the ease of use benefits or care about the expense. As such I got nowhere with the product.
- kylebolt 5y ago
  The worst part about a lesson like this is that it can take years to really get to this conclusion. I'm trying to ask myself "who is the buyer of this product". This is happening a lot in digital health where the payor isn't the end user.
throwinawaysoon 5y ago
8.In hindsight, it's easy to give advice to others on their flaws than making it a reality on your own. Making a list really sells it to people. 9.Stop making products, start writing personal development/marketing books that contain things that seem obvious in your head but you've never really tried it yourself. 10. Make your fluff seem as authentic as you can
- cercatrova 5y ago
  > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
forkLding 5y ago
I'm a lot more hesitant to say: Build something people really need because of examples like Instagram/Snapchat etc. Were those really needs? Were people really "needing" Instagram at the start? I think businesses should target pain points/needs but I'm now of the opinion that its best to start with targeting a sizeable target segment and then work out pain points/products/needs/inspiration from there. As long as there are customers/users/market, there will be possibilities. I know it might sound similar to others but a need can always be argued into existence or a need can be hidden so deep you can't even qualify it until the company/product is out (hence why some startups pivot or end up doing some exploration before they take off). But it is much easier to have a target group in mind and then target them and figure out a distribution channel to reach them than figuring out needs from the start. I think come up with your target customer group first, study them and then figure out the marketing and messaging needed target them and then things get easier from there.

jfengel 5y ago

Is it really realistic to build something people "need"? Humanity survived millions of years without a single piece of software; it's unlikely that anything you write is ever going to be a "need". People buy stuff they don't need all the time. Games and other entertainment are the very definition of "nice to have", and they're vast markets. Even business tools are usually not "needs" if all they do is improve an existing product. It's incredibly hard to know what will attract people. Even if you know categorically that a thing will make their lives better, people often won't get it, and instead spend their money on something objectively useless. It seems to be luck as much as anything else, being in the right place at the right time. It catches a "buzz" for whatever reason and becomes popular, or fails to and doesn't. Knowing it beforehand would be great, but nobody ever does.

rexreed 5y ago
If you're trying to run a business, then yes, it needs to be something people need, because you're asking people to give up something of value to them. Money and/or time. If you ask for something of value you have to provide something of value in return. Of course, the need can be anything that people find valuable. It could be a product or a service or just a way to stay connected or entertainment. Whatever it is, it has to be something people "need" from a value perspective, if you are planning to make a business out of it. Of course, you don't have to run a business. Many people do things out of their own interests that are never turned into businesses, and certainly humanity has been doing that for millenia. You don't have to turn it into a business. The points above are relevant to running a successful business.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  I don't really understand your definition of need. You define a 'need' as anything that people find valuable, but I would classify 'nice to have' as also being things someone finds valuable. How do you distinguish something that is a 'nice to have' and a 'need'?
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    Nice to have is a luxury - it doesn't solve any actual problem people have, it just make life a little bit nicer. Need is an actual value proposition - people are already spending time or money to do a thing that you can do better. I think you're using the rigid definition of "need" like the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy, but in the business world "need" is more value driven, or in the B2C side closer to the top of the hierarchy.
    - cortesoft 5y ago
      That makes sense, but the examples the person I responded to used examples that don't fit with what you said.
  - brianwawok 5y ago

mdorazio 5y ago

To your #5, I find that developers tend to be allergic to the term "marketing" because it's easy to think it's a waste of money or the department of flashy do-nothings if you've never tried to actually build a business yourself.

dnautics 5y ago
I doubt that's why they are allergic to it. Perhaps I'm projecting, but I suspect that developers have seen their fair share of products which succeed (for some measure of succeed, e.g. "raised a round" or "founders cashed out") with only marketing and a crap or, worse, vaporware product. It's a very common and easy fallacious inference to go from there to "all marketing is bad", especially in a field where there are a handful of success stories (e.g. craigslist) where the success was built with very little or no marketing, and "the product spoke for itself".
- brianwawok 5y ago
  Marketing on a bad product sometimes lets you make money. No marketing on a good product seldom lets you be successful. The mistake of founders is to let burns from the first bucket, stop the second from having a chance.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    That's a paraphrase of what I wrote
wsc981 5y ago
I'd say it's also just not fun. For example setting up a product page on Steam and the iOS AppStore is just a royal pain for me, and I would think most developers would feel the same. It's much more fun to code.

kylebolt 5y ago

Yes great re-cap, thank you! Even though I've read and heard about these common mistakes, sometimes we have to learn by doing to truly find out if they apply to our use case.

ensiferum 5y ago

Most of these fall under the term "product - market fit". All key points really. Fail at the these and it's an uphill battle to acquire and esp. Retain customers. Good stuff to read "the mom test" and "sell more faster".

blacktriangle 5y ago

Number 7 is a subtle but huge problem. I ran into this way back when I was trying to sell a small, education-focused GIS system I wrote as an alternative to the monstrosity that is ArcGIS. Students loved it since it was easy to use (only had maybe 5% of the functionality of ArcGIS, but it was the functionality that covered 90% of basic analysis.) The department heads I spoke to loved the idea since it was drastically cheaper than Arc, they could push the cost to the student (less than a textbook) rather than maintain ESRI contracts. The problem was that the decision maker, ie the real customer, was the professor, who did not experience either the ease of use benefits or care about the expense. As such I got nowhere with the product.

kylebolt 5y ago
The worst part about a lesson like this is that it can take years to really get to this conclusion. I'm trying to ask myself "who is the buyer of this product". This is happening a lot in digital health where the payor isn't the end user.

throwinawaysoon 5y ago

8.In hindsight, it's easy to give advice to others on their flaws than making it a reality on your own. Making a list really sells it to people. 9.Stop making products, start writing personal development/marketing books that contain things that seem obvious in your head but you've never really tried it yourself. 10. Make your fluff seem as authentic as you can

cercatrova 5y ago
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

forkLding 5y ago

I'm a lot more hesitant to say: Build something people really need because of examples like Instagram/Snapchat etc. Were those really needs? Were people really "needing" Instagram at the start? I think businesses should target pain points/needs but I'm now of the opinion that its best to start with targeting a sizeable target segment and then work out pain points/products/needs/inspiration from there. As long as there are customers/users/market, there will be possibilities. I know it might sound similar to others but a need can always be argued into existence or a need can be hidden so deep you can't even qualify it until the company/product is out (hence why some startups pivot or end up doing some exploration before they take off). But it is much easier to have a target group in mind and then target them and figure out a distribution channel to reach them than figuring out needs from the start. I think come up with your target customer group first, study them and then figure out the marketing and messaging needed target them and then things get easier from there.