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As a single founder I am sort of confused about these things too.Here is what my plan is -> Basically become a code monkey for a first four-five months and do m

As a single founder I am sort of confused about these things too.Here is what my plan is -> Basically become a code monkey for a first four-five months and do minimal promotion marketing.Once MVP is ready then do full time marketing pitching and fix bugs once in a while.If you get funded hire more people and more coding. Anyone see a problem with that approach?

eLobato 14y ago
I feel like if you cut off time programming and spend that time working on building hype you might be able to earn a bunch more of customers earlier, which might turn out to be the difference between not needing external funds and needing them. Or the difference between being able to getting them and not getting them, if that's what you want. Anyway best of luck!
- nodemaker 14y ago
  Thanks for the advice.Can you please point me towards where I can find some knowledge about building hype.I have seen some companies do this (Recent Example - LightTable). In my case my product is really different and I dont know how I can get people to understand what it is without actually getting them to play with it.My belief is that my MVP will be the best tool for building hype.
  - chmike 14y ago
    Check the story of dropbox. This is one approach to test your idea. If it succeed, things get much easier.
    - chmike 14y ago
      Unfortunately, I can't find the initial promo of dropbox : " throw away your USB drive". It is also not accessible on the wikipedia page. This is a good example off startup project testing. They did so many things right. EDIT: check this http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Is-the-original-Dropbox-private-beta-video-still-available-online-somewhere http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Is-the-original-Dropbox-private...
SatvikBeri 14y ago
My approach (if you haven't already) would be to essentially get pre-sales. Cold call potential customers, or talk to people, with your 30-second elevator pitch. Get to the point where people tell you they want to buy your product as soon as it's available-then build, iterate, etc.
- philip1209 14y ago
  Build a really cool marketing website, an awesome promo video, then buy google ads to test how many people click the 'sign up' button that says 'Coming soon - give us your email here so we can let you know when we launch.' Divide amount spent on ads by number of emails and you have a cost of acquisition. See how this compares to potential ad income / user monthly cost. If the latter is higher than the former, you have a quantitatively-substantiated profitable business model, and you should then talk to an investor/angel.
  - citizens 14y ago
    The real cost of acquisition would be much higher. Newsletter Subscriber != Customer
getsat 14y ago
Bro, you need to read this book: http://www.startupbook.net http://www.startupbook.net – http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-ebook/dp/B003YH9MMI/ http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-ebook/dp/B... That mentioned 4-5 months will, statistically, be for nought if you don't do the important marketing/prep work ahead of time.
- benblodgett 14y ago
  I would say this is a more appropriate recommendation - http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/0976470705 http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/....
jakejake 14y ago
As hard as it is to admit as a programmer, I think it can be smarter sometimes to flesh out the idea and get a feel for the market before spending much, if any time coding. Building wireframes and screenshots can be enough to show investors if you're going that route. Of course if it's just you and you're committed to launching your product regardless of whether you get investment or not, then you might as well code it up and see what happens!
chmike 14y ago
I would say you put yourself at risk to have wasted the 5 to 6 months of programming. For some applications the risk is low or the possible loss acceptable. A preferable approach is if you can test the business/app soundness before investing 5 to 6 months in programming effort. If you can test two or three app ideas in that same period you significantly increase your chances to hit gold.
rmATinnovafy 14y ago
I do. You are wasting your time by building the product first. You have to do the inverse. Become a marketing money for the first four to five months and do minimal coding (that is why its called an MVP). Once you have people buying your product, then you focus on improving it (or refactoring to rails, for example). If you do get funding, then use the money to grow the business and software at the same time/ratio. Reason why this may seem a bit alien to you is because it requires you to go into marketing mode from day #1. Something you may not be comfortable doing. Plus, marketing a product is just not about adwords, blog posts, and link on hacker news. It requires you to actually talk to other people directly. This is where a lot of introvert hackers ( like me ) quit.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ams6110 14y ago
  Also requires you to market the thing that programmers hate, vapor-ware.
  - rmATinnovafy 14y ago
    I disagree. You would have an MVP. Something tangible to sell. Vapor-ware is software/hardware that is sold before it is built. The purpose of the MVP is to get something good enough out of the door so you can focus on testing. Testing sales, marketing, user experience, etc. Once the initial testing is done, and the product has proven itself to be profitable if not then iterate/pivot), then you go and refactor the software if, and only if, the costs of doing so are worthwile. I know of products out there that are complete and total bowls of spaghetti that make a lot of money and would be re-written by most of us. But they are profitable, and that is the ultimate test for a product. Does it sell?
    - wpietri 14y ago
      Not to nit-pick to much, because I agree with your basic point, but I think the ultimate test for a product is does it profitably deliver value. Every scam artist in the world is profitable, and I see too many people go wrong by pursuing pure profitability. Coughzyngacough.
j45 14y ago
It's a little backwards. What you're proposing is a little like building a house to see if a customer likes enough to buy it, without letting them pick a layout/blueprint they like, or the conversation that goes into the blueprint of ensuring the customer would want the house. First, find a target customer. Learn what their painpoints are. See if they're willing to pay for that painpoint. Then, build something to sell to them. This allows you to explore multiple hypotheses, instead of going to them with your idea that ends in a yes or no. By involving customers from the get go, they are more engaged, invested and committed, especially if it could make their life easier. You will find that this path will reveal to you a completely different set of priorities and pain points that would be small to do, but have a huge impact, which is a great basis for an MVP. By doing it doing it in reverse, you're hoping you take a stab at it and it pans out, at the expense of not doing the idea development upfront before writing a single line of code. The best way to "market" is to do it as you explore what to do and build a mailing list. Share your journey through a blog focussing on the life and business problem you're solving (not your code or tech breakthroughs). Learn about your customer instead of guessing your way through what someone might want. Having domain knowledge in a field that you build something for could be helpful but you still have to validate, first, if anyone will pay for it. That's the scary, and what makes it a real business (self sustainable and makes money for you).
wpietri 14y ago
Yes! Like others, I see a problem. You have a big assumption: Product X will be valuable enough that people in group Y will pay for it. Your way of testing that assumption is to spend 5 months coding plus N months trying to sell it. So at the end of 6-12 months, suppose you discover that Product X is in fact not valuable. All of the coding time and a substantial portion of the marketing time will be wasted. Ask yourself: what's the cheapest possible way to test your core assumption?
briandear 14y ago
Read the Lean Startup and learn what an MVP really is. And MVP can be built without writing any code. Your first few months should be figuring out what your customers want.

eLobato 14y ago

I feel like if you cut off time programming and spend that time working on building hype you might be able to earn a bunch more of customers earlier, which might turn out to be the difference between not needing external funds and needing them. Or the difference between being able to getting them and not getting them, if that's what you want. Anyway best of luck!

nodemaker 14y ago
Thanks for the advice.Can you please point me towards where I can find some knowledge about building hype.I have seen some companies do this (Recent Example - LightTable). In my case my product is really different and I dont know how I can get people to understand what it is without actually getting them to play with it.My belief is that my MVP will be the best tool for building hype.
- chmike 14y ago
  Check the story of dropbox. This is one approach to test your idea. If it succeed, things get much easier.
  - chmike 14y ago
    Unfortunately, I can't find the initial promo of dropbox : " throw away your USB drive". It is also not accessible on the wikipedia page. This is a good example off startup project testing. They did so many things right. EDIT: check this http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Is-the-original-Dropbox-private-beta-video-still-available-online-somewhere http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Is-the-original-Dropbox-private...

SatvikBeri 14y ago

My approach (if you haven't already) would be to essentially get pre-sales. Cold call potential customers, or talk to people, with your 30-second elevator pitch. Get to the point where people tell you they want to buy your product as soon as it's available-then build, iterate, etc.

philip1209 14y ago
Build a really cool marketing website, an awesome promo video, then buy google ads to test how many people click the 'sign up' button that says 'Coming soon - give us your email here so we can let you know when we launch.' Divide amount spent on ads by number of emails and you have a cost of acquisition. See how this compares to potential ad income / user monthly cost. If the latter is higher than the former, you have a quantitatively-substantiated profitable business model, and you should then talk to an investor/angel.
- citizens 14y ago
  The real cost of acquisition would be much higher. Newsletter Subscriber != Customer

getsat 14y ago

Bro, you need to read this book: http://www.startupbook.net http://www.startupbook.net – http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-ebook/dp/B003YH9MMI/ http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-ebook/dp/B... That mentioned 4-5 months will, statistically, be for nought if you don't do the important marketing/prep work ahead of time.

benblodgett 14y ago
I would say this is a more appropriate recommendation - http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/0976470705 http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/....

jakejake 14y ago

As hard as it is to admit as a programmer, I think it can be smarter sometimes to flesh out the idea and get a feel for the market before spending much, if any time coding. Building wireframes and screenshots can be enough to show investors if you're going that route. Of course if it's just you and you're committed to launching your product regardless of whether you get investment or not, then you might as well code it up and see what happens!

chmike 14y ago

I would say you put yourself at risk to have wasted the 5 to 6 months of programming. For some applications the risk is low or the possible loss acceptable. A preferable approach is if you can test the business/app soundness before investing 5 to 6 months in programming effort. If you can test two or three app ideas in that same period you significantly increase your chances to hit gold.

rmATinnovafy 14y ago

I do. You are wasting your time by building the product first. You have to do the inverse. Become a marketing money for the first four to five months and do minimal coding (that is why its called an MVP). Once you have people buying your product, then you focus on improving it (or refactoring to rails, for example). If you do get funding, then use the money to grow the business and software at the same time/ratio. Reason why this may seem a bit alien to you is because it requires you to go into marketing mode from day #1. Something you may not be comfortable doing. Plus, marketing a product is just not about adwords, blog posts, and link on hacker news. It requires you to actually talk to other people directly. This is where a lot of introvert hackers ( like me ) quit.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ams6110 14y ago
Also requires you to market the thing that programmers hate, vapor-ware.
- rmATinnovafy 14y ago
  I disagree. You would have an MVP. Something tangible to sell. Vapor-ware is software/hardware that is sold before it is built. The purpose of the MVP is to get something good enough out of the door so you can focus on testing. Testing sales, marketing, user experience, etc. Once the initial testing is done, and the product has proven itself to be profitable if not then iterate/pivot), then you go and refactor the software if, and only if, the costs of doing so are worthwile. I know of products out there that are complete and total bowls of spaghetti that make a lot of money and would be re-written by most of us. But they are profitable, and that is the ultimate test for a product. Does it sell?
  - wpietri 14y ago
    Not to nit-pick to much, because I agree with your basic point, but I think the ultimate test for a product is does it profitably deliver value. Every scam artist in the world is profitable, and I see too many people go wrong by pursuing pure profitability. Coughzyngacough.

j45 14y ago

It's a little backwards. What you're proposing is a little like building a house to see if a customer likes enough to buy it, without letting them pick a layout/blueprint they like, or the conversation that goes into the blueprint of ensuring the customer would want the house. First, find a target customer. Learn what their painpoints are. See if they're willing to pay for that painpoint. Then, build something to sell to them. This allows you to explore multiple hypotheses, instead of going to them with your idea that ends in a yes or no. By involving customers from the get go, they are more engaged, invested and committed, especially if it could make their life easier. You will find that this path will reveal to you a completely different set of priorities and pain points that would be small to do, but have a huge impact, which is a great basis for an MVP. By doing it doing it in reverse, you're hoping you take a stab at it and it pans out, at the expense of not doing the idea development upfront before writing a single line of code. The best way to "market" is to do it as you explore what to do and build a mailing list. Share your journey through a blog focussing on the life and business problem you're solving (not your code or tech breakthroughs). Learn about your customer instead of guessing your way through what someone might want. Having domain knowledge in a field that you build something for could be helpful but you still have to validate, first, if anyone will pay for it. That's the scary, and what makes it a real business (self sustainable and makes money for you).

wpietri 14y ago

Yes! Like others, I see a problem. You have a big assumption: Product X will be valuable enough that people in group Y will pay for it. Your way of testing that assumption is to spend 5 months coding plus N months trying to sell it. So at the end of 6-12 months, suppose you discover that Product X is in fact not valuable. All of the coding time and a substantial portion of the marketing time will be wasted. Ask yourself: what's the cheapest possible way to test your core assumption?

briandear 14y ago

Read the Lean Startup and learn what an MVP really is. And MVP can be built without writing any code. Your first few months should be figuring out what your customers want.