It's challenging to build a meaningful product when you are not an "expert" in any field
We had a chat with the team about how we struggled and still struggle with creating a meaningful product that solves a real problem.
Here is a recording of the chat if you rather watch it than read my take on the topic and have some fun watching 3 guys from Czechia speaking English.
The issue is, that we are no experts in any field. We are great in the general skill of building products (designing, developing, marketing it, etc.). But it's hard for us to see what needs to be built and how it should be done to have an impact.
Our ideas mostly just scratch an itch in a given field. When we dive deeper we found the ideal solution is much more complex and needs a lot of understanding, research, and connection with others in the field.
And that it would take years to do that and at that time we would've died of starvation.
Yeah, that's what VC funding is for, I know.
But we never had the urge to build unicorns out of our ideas, thus it wasn't real for us to take the investment.
But there are ways we believe now. And we should've taken them sooner.
There are two ways in general
1st - go to work for a company that you love. For me, this would've been Headspace for example. I am passionate about mindfulness and meditation.
Working for them would've given me the opportunity to become an expert in that field. I would've learned about many problems and opportunities and build enough relations to start something on my own after some time.
But for me, there is another way that I love even more.
2nd - become sustainable and do what you love. Yeah. Just start moving in the direction that feels right for you. And build ways to become sustainable so you can move in that direction for a long time to become an expert.
For example, we as a team can sell our time to others and help them build their products and in our spare time, we work on our own products.
We love doing it this way. We are still figuring out the best setup for this (see Crazy Monkeys) but it's starting to crystalize. And we love it. It makes me and I believe our whole team happy.
We are free, we can be creative, we can do things we love every day and help others too.
Ahoj Johan,
Good points, I especially like the second one as it gives you more creative freedom.
I would also suggest the third one - partnering with a company to develop a solution for its operations. It's a win-win where you get access to specific real-life issues and said company gets a solution to manage their issues.
Obviously, it should be agreed that you will own and resell this solution.
Cheers,
And Ahoj! Made my day!
Oh yes! That's a powerful one. Great contribution. Did you manage to do it? How did you got in touch with other companies to offer them your service and how did they took that you are going to resell it after?
In fact, I was on the other end of the deal a few years back. The software was developed for my company and I would not mind this software to be resold if the developer gave me a better rate.
There are ways to position it in a way that new customers would not compete with your initial customer. Say, a customer is a local retail business and in your agreement, you specify an exclusive geographic area within which you would not resell your product (perhaps, for a limited term).
I hope this helps,
Super helpful! Thanks!
Hey Johan, I feel the same! Your second solution is definitely the healthiest. I recently read Running Lean and Scaling Lean from Ash Maurya, this is probably the 3rd solution to your situation. IF you are willing to leave the house and talk to people check out these books and start applying the guidelines, that way you will find problems to solve in a short timeframe. But I still think that 2nd solution is most natural. Thank you for the article and have fun on your journey! Cheers -Tom
I will definitely do that! Thanks for your contribution, appreciate it a lot!
I absolutely feel the same way. Sometimes friends that work in another industry tell me about some problems they have at work and I think to myself "I could automate that with Software!". The truth is, however, that you need a bunch of knowledge about the branch and customer.
I think a good point to start is a hobby of yours. You probably know a lot about it and are passionate about the field :).
But anyways, good to hear that you are happy with the way it is for your!
Happy to hear we are not alone! And yes exactly... even if we see some problem that we believe we can solve easily and the product would become sustainable (in terms of making cash) as soon as we dive deeper into the branch we find that we would need much more time to make it really work.
Yes, hobby and solving problems there is a great way to do it. But we had issues with that too as we were just "standing" not moving anywhere cause we were looking for the next opportunity to show up. Thus we had no problems haha :D
I started Sponseasy without knowing anything about sponsorship.
Yet, I feel that allowed me to see the market with a clear virgin picture and propose a different articulation of the solution as if I were working in that field for a long time.
It's more about how much are you willing to invest in learning more!