Chicken or the egg problem - building an audience vs releasing product
A lot of materials online say that building an online product (not necessarily a subscription model) is simple - all you need is to build an audience first. I find it more compelling to release things in order to build that audience, rather than the other way around.
For instance, getting legitimate testimonials for something is hard until you send it out in the ether. I'm sure there this gets easier over time, but I'm curious where the IH community leans on this scale?
Along with the other commenters, I would also say it's somewhere in the middle! Identify an MVP and then start showing it around to get testimonials and feedback.
I personally like to build something then market once you have at least something to market. I think there’s too much noise out there to market an invisible product.
Here's my experience with info products:
The results:
In my opinion, when creating an info product you DO want to talk about it, and constantly share valuable information with your audience. The keyword here is valuable So tweeting that "hey I just finished a chapter yayy" is worthless in my opinion. Create threads and blog posts from the content you wrote, and include a CTA to a page where people can subscribe to your e-mail list.
Getting testimonials with an info product is pretty easy. Just send free copies to your followers and give them time to read/watch it, then ask them: "So, did you like it?"
It is possible to build a target audience interested in the field of the product and gain confidence in dealing before the product is launched, and you will find purchase requests or interested in the product before announcing the sale directly, in addition, a target audience can also be built after the product launch process when you are marketing in a correct way and gaining the customer’s trust ...
in both cases The reputation of the product and the credibility of the owner of the product or company is the basis for gaining customer satisfaction and obtaining many new and continuous sales
Generally speaking, I've noticed that audience building works better with B2C than B2B.
I suspect that ..
For tech products or a new product category/market, definitely get a prototype/MVP up asap and then "visit" your target customers (online/offline) to get any form of usage/pre-sales/commitment for it. If you are solving a real problem (pain killer, save time, make money), folks will pay to get their problem solved, even if they don't know you. If you solve their problem remarkably well, they will tell their peers - well maybe sometimes with a small bonus incentive.
For educational courses/merch/books/entertainment/service type products, etc, you'll probably need to focus on building up a sizeable audience first.
Have something to show before building the audience is usually the best path. If your product is info/directory or you are selling services then audience can help.
I think building an audience first, helps you understand your “future” customer better, which would lead to releasing a product that has a higher chance of meeting their needs.
And you would have created a distribution channel, which would allow you to post about your product and later updates to a guaranteed audience.
I'm right in the middle, trying to build the brand / product and the audience at the same time