Just starting
Hey! 👋 Long time lurker, first time poster.
I'm coming back to an idea I had ages ago. It's a customizable poster service aimed at the home office niche. The idea has gone through many decisions but it has been "proved" by another product in this same space. But their product kinda sucks and doesn't have a lot of the features, customizable and has a lot of bugs. Mainly because I have the burning desire to just have a product. Not to make millions (or anything). Just to start something.
I'll be documenting my journey and hopefully something comes of it!
What motivates you to build products?
The liberty to do what you want to do and create.
Be careful with 'does not have a lot of the features', that can be a dangerous outlook. You should be starting lean, building something with the core features to satisfy your client. Someone having a successful business does not mean that it is validated for you.
Validate, validate, validate, validate.
Hmm that's an interesting comment. I definitely intend to start with something lean - but since the product is driven by the ability to customize, this is difficult to judge where the cut off should be for an MVP - what would your suggestions be?
I'll share more details about the app in a new post and I'd love to get your feedback on it.
How would you suggest validating this idea? I have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to market and as I say, am not incredibly motivated by money.
Customizability does not mean a requirement to have a lot of features. Having the few features that your customers actually WANT to customize is what you need. Your customers will be happier with one or two refined customization options that they're actually looking for than five that lead to a messy website and unrefined features.
You should do 50 customer interviews (bare minimum) before you build your MVP. Otherwise, you are building a solution for a problem that you are not sure exists. When you are sure of the features that your niche target customer-base wants, build an MVP with only those features.
Hmm this a good point! Thanks for that insight.
Yeah that might be a good idea, but unsure who, specifically to interview. The app, for brief context, is similar to mapiful.com. It allows you to create posters of maps and customize the design and colors. Mapiful has too few customization options so I believe there is a gap in the market to allow for different fonts, different designs and sexy presets for inspiration. Additionally, I'm going to mix in 3D renders of buildings using Google Maps. For example, someone could create a poster with a view of the empire state, if that makes sense. The market I'm going after is primarily home office workers and generally younger people (around 20-35). What are your thoughts?
You will need to interview whoever you currently believe your target customer is! :-) What made you select that target market?
I selected that market because I'm in it! :D
I'll try reaching out to as many friends as I can but doubt I'll be able to get to 50. I just have the drive to build so this hampers me a bit but it's worth it in the long run I guess. Thanks for your guidance and responses
By 'in it' do you mean that you fit the demographic or that you have that same problem? Having the problem yourself is a good start towards validation, but just selecting a group of people because you are one of them is not.
If I were you I would reach out to more than friends! Do some research, figure out who other companies like what you are proposing sell to, interview them as well.
What makes you believe that other people have this problem?
You have to take a deep breath and put away the drive to build so that you can make sure that there is an actual problem.
Having that drive is amazing, and I am sure that many people here wish they had it. However, businesses that are created without a problem that they are trying to solve almost always fail.
Looking forward to seeing your product take shape :)
For me, watching someone use a service you put together yourself is probably the most rewarding aspect of building a product. It means you created something that satisfies someone else's needs and it's incredibly exciting.
Completely echo this! This is one of the reasons I love to build too