Home
Starting Up
Case Studies DB
Products
Ideas DB
Vibe Coding Tools
Subscribe to IH+
Starting Up
Case Studies
Ideas DB
Products DB
Sign in
Join
12
Likes
6
Comments
Notes on "Failed Ideas"
by
Alex Hillman
https://twitter.com/dayhaysoos/status/1284956842750353409?s=21
Has anyone come across any good examples of the 'get customers before building a product' strategy being executed?
On the surface it seems like sort of obviously good advice, because who wouldn't want customers waiting for your product to launch, but what does it really mean in practice?
I've heard of people pitching a product idea to a customer and getting them to sign an agreement to pay for it if/when they build it. But it seems like this would only really work for something incredibly niche, to the point you may just end up in the sort of 'consultancy' model of simply being paid the equivalent of a day rate to build a specific piece of software exactly for the needs of a specific customer, in such a way that might make it hard to generalise for a broader market afterwards.
Is this wrong? It's such a great sounding strategy, and I'd love to hear of some examples that have really worked.
Ah yes - building for a specific customer before there is a product is a trap of its own for exactly the reasons you mention.
What we have done with our businesses, and find to be the most repeatable path for others, is to build an audience of potential customers who have observable patterns in their needs and buying habits. In 30x500 we narrow this further to professional audiences that you belong to, since that is where you have the most built in advantages (and also isn't preciciely where you need to stay forever).
The goal, as we teach it and at a very high level, is to simultaneously learn how to reach, and earn trust with an audience so that you can create things that solve problems they will pay to have solved. With those resources (an email list so you can reliably reach them, and a deep understanding of their problems) you can consistently launch products to paying customers on day one or earlier, if you aim to do Presales!
Makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing! I particularly like the bit about observable patterns in needs/buying habits - like, go with what people actually do already, not what they say they'll do. Do you have any go-to methods of researching this kind of stuff?
YUP! https://shop.stackingthebricks.com/sales-safari-101
Ben Orenstein did this with https://tuple.app and detailed his experience every week on The Art of Product podcast. Tuple is crushing it right now. Just one data point.
Good stuff!