Building a non-customer community worth it?
I know building a community around your product is important, but i don't know if building a following of non potential customers is worth the effort.
I have been working on a youtube channel to promote my personal brand so that when i build a product that is actually good, i would have a community to test it out and give me feedback and maybe even become customers. But, I realized that it takes a significant amount of time and energy to film and edit. Time i could have otherwise used to work on products.
I had a chance to talk to the CEO and founder of BitTitan, Geeman Yip, and he said "there is no point in having 100k followers on youtube if only 100 of them are going to be actual users". I heard something similar on a ycombinator podcast which makes me wonder if I should be putting time and effort into cultivating followers.
Summary:
Should I focus on product alone VS product and building non-customer following. please let me know what you think.
I'm currently in the same position. I am thinking of building an audience first and I hope that their pain points will inform me on products to build.
I also think investing in long form evergreen marketing material is good. As you can always recycle it to attract new followers.
thanks for the feedback. that is what i was thinking too but i noticed i didn't have that much time in my day to outside of work to focus on both. i've been trying but it has been stressful which makes me consider if it is even worth it.
Yeah I hear you. I guess it also depends on your goals. Do you need to make money in the near future or are you fine with delayed gratification while you build a strong brand?
But if you can build something that allows you to charge straight off the bat then you should do it.
If you just start, I think building a non-customer community is worthless. It's better build a community around your product and problems that your product solve.
I will say building product and building non-customer and future customer community.
Non customer follower can help for word of mouth marketing. I not basecamp customer, but I follow their blog and story, and I recomend their product in my network if they need project management software.
Also, who know in the future, you will build something which suitable for your non customer follower.