There’s too much noise out there to market an invisible product
I personally like to build something then market once I have something to market.
Like many Indie Hackers I’ve read the required books - the classics of our industry. I think many concepts from these books help and push us in the right direction.
Books like 4hr Work Week and The Lean Startup preach the MVP method - which is a great concept on the surface: validate your idea before spending too much time and effort developing it. This sounds completely sensible.
However at the time when these books were written, the noise level was down at 2 compared to today’s 9. Are we at a saturation point where MVP’s now need to move to the next level, requiring quite a bit more work than before? For me, that’s a yes.
I think you are partially right.
From what I understand the equation for a sustainable product now is: value + creativity + community
The market is more saturated and opinionated than ever.
So, we have to narrow our focus to make valuable content creatively for your niche community.
What do you think?
That's great: value + creativity + community. That's a general direction for me with my latest idea.
Yeah, I plan to develop at least "something" for each idea, rather than just a newsletter signup. Some neat bit of functionality that will get a reaction. I got some great feedback on Reddit a few weeks ago, and convinced me there was enough people to justify spending some time to take it to another level (where I'm at now)
Feedback is a great guide. I'm rooting for you.
Nah, MVPs don't need to be "next level". They are MVPs, they should provide the minimum amount of functionality that it takes for the user to love it. That means probably focusing on the most important features of your products, but if you aren't constantly getting feedback from users or prospects about your product early on, it can get tough to figure out what to prioritize.
There's a saying in the PM world, "feedback is a gift". And it truly is. So don't worry about entering a saturated market. Go talk to potential customers and see if they agree with your hypothesis. For all you know, they don't think the market pertains to their issues, and even though it's crowded they want a new solution that cuts through the b*llshit.
On a logical level that makes sense, M = minimal and minimal should be perfectly optimised to meet that need. However, like V.I.P doesn't actually mean a very important person anymore, I think the term MVP can now easily be misconstrued to mean something far below minimal.
You still risk less by introducing your product early. I was on the same side with you before I spent 4 months building just to shut down the startup 3 weeks later. None of the people I thought would buy - bought.
What was the product? What made it unique and what stopped you from pivoting?
I think the MVP idea is still valid. I experienced myself wasting too much time (about 1,5 y) and money (about 20k) on an excel product (inventory control for restaurants), that works, but only a few customers want it. To avoid saturation, we could try to find unsolved real problems; and I think there are more than enough out there.
You are right. There really is a lot of noise around because of what is being released. But unfortunately it is not always possible to get income from your startups like https://recentcoin.com/token/flokimoon-flokimoon-0x1c304a6c . I think you should never give up and try new things or keep doing what you're doing. That goes for all areas of life, including commerce or promotion or whatever
Personally I'm making software that I want / need, and that will keep me driven with no income. I'm making music software to get me better at music theory. I'm gonna make me the main customer and keep going until I start reading Beethoven scores backwards and upside down :P at that point, i'll know it works and people will jump on board.
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Right now, I get paid very well contracting. More than 95% of people who are making money Indie Hacking. I love coding, so that's win / win. I'll keep building my product and eventually there will be a pivot point / traction, as long there's quality there, belief and I Iove what I'm making.
I recently interviewed Luca Micheli and back in 2010 he was able to make a lot of money with apps because back then there were only 1000 available. So, as the web marketing is growing is definitely harder to distribute your product, especially if you have a lot of competition or you are solving a problem that is not super relevant. However, if you solve a problem with a lot of demand, then you probably require 0 marketing. I am building the WBE Space for 8 months and have reached $150 MRR recently. It required a lot of work and twitter but it gets easier as you go!
Hey Tiago, cheers for the response - your podcast is great, some really good interviews going on. I agree though and I think with passion / drive / commitment to ones niche / area you'll eventually find something that people "demand", at that point it's inevitable! And people will hunt that person down with little care about their marketing budget and all that.
I agree it's more difficult to get the media's attention, especially for working prototypes. Even Reddit communities are held by a few which have more than 10million followers—they aren't that much different from mainstream media. So I decided to stop using and browsing Reddit because of this inherent bias in the content moderation system.
Haha that’s pretty extreme but I admire the no compromise stance. I tend to think all social interactions end up sliding into our natural tribal tendencies, with outsized power for the privileged few. One problem for the robots to solve when they come to power!
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm working on an MVP right now that was initially going to be a reg page I drove traffic to. However, with everything in the market, it's hard to see the vision of something and buy into it without seeing a tangible product.
I don't think you necessarily have to. I had an idea of generating content ideas for podcast and YouTube creators using artificial intelligence. I was really excited about the product. And what i did was to draft some ui dashboard and create a landing page that look exactly like the one I will use on the real product. And instead of early access I added a buy now button (so before clicking on the button, you don't know if the product is built or not) . And market it to a lot of people in the podcast and YouTube domain. I had this tool called hotjar that record user interactions in the website and I observe that no-one even tried to click on the buy button. They just scroll and go. So I figure out it that this idea was not really good. And i was really happy because otherwise I will be developing website, machine learning models, ... right now just to end up with a product that no-one will really use.
I think it's more about speaking to the right people, in the right way, using the right channels.
Then what you're saying makes sense, is extremely relevant, and isn't noise.
There's a lot more noise out there now, but you stand apart when what you say matters and offers real value in a unique way for your ideal customer.
100% The last thing you want is your product being swept under the rug
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm working on an MVP right now that was initially going to be a reg page I drove traffic to. However, with everything in the market, it's hard to see the vision of something and buy into it without seeing a tangible product. So, I'm not building out the whole SaaS product right now, but it will be a useable model.
Nice one and good luck 🎯
I agree with your point about there being too much noise. But I don't think it's necessarily a case of building a product and ignoring the noise. I think the key is to be selective when it comes to the noise you decide to listen to, which, granted, isn't always easy. I think it's important to remember, you'll never be able to satisfy everyone. But feedback is always good, so long as you're selective.
Yeah there’s definitely a fine art to it.
I think so as well, have to be innovative and bring quality to the table to stand out. I think a lot of the faster-paced MVPs are hitting niche markets, which can be a great play as well but as time goes on more and more niches are getting filled.
Yeah, I think too many people are playing the same riff.
Why do you think an MVP is equal to an invisible product? Could you elaborate on that a bit, please?
Sure. Essentially I think with talent in both marketing and making you should be able to build something substantial first before going into marketing overdrive.
I've been asked give feedback on ideas that are just too "minimal" for me to believe in, even once they reach the stage where the maker thinks it's ready to make money.
The MVP was a secondary thought to this post, and has distracted from the main point - that marketing should be done once an idea is fleshy / sexy enough, which means it will rise about the noise level.
Yeah, OK, the whole thread is polluted with the MVP convo but your original post has nothing to do with that. Check.
But still, I am struggling to understand what is an "invisible" product.
Maybe I should talk about how I am looking at this rather than expecting you to explain.
For me, visibility of a product has nothing to do with its maturity. Because, again, for me, visibility is more of a promotion-domain thing (in the marketing mix / 4Ps) and product maturity is a product-domain thing. So a very underdeveloped product can be highly visible and a very mature product can be invisible.
I can put effort and money behind a working but not mature product to push it in front of its target market and it is no longer "invisible". Or I can do nothing and expect people to come (since I built it) for a mature product and it is invisible. Because in my mind, visibility is about awareness.
And I kind of wonder, by your "fleshy / sexy enough" remark, if your point has something to do with the product/market fit? Because, again, for me, "sexy enough" is not exactly a product maturity thing. It is a product thing but it is not exactly connected to maturity.
I am failing to grasp the "invisibility" of a product.
I think you are mixing 2 things together. You can split up your startup in 2 phases: getting to product market fit, and growth. Marketing is done in part 2, not part 1. MVP is to get to product market fit, so phase 1. It's not to market your product.
MVP is the least wasteful way to build the correct product, but by no means is it meant as a marketing effort (although you could test marketing channels in that phase)
I am not extremely sure if this is true. It is almost like saying "you need engineering only in part 1 and not 2". "Market"ing has everything to do with "market" fit.
Btw, are you aware this guy practically stole your comment?
I think you're confusing making something people need (MVP) with selling/marketing a product (Release).
These are 2 different things.
The MVP is invaluable for you to learn if it even makes sense to invest further time or money in it. Or pivot.
yes
Hi Adam,
You are absolutely right. There is a hell of a lot more noise in the market these days.
The MVP method and finding product-market fit for me is a waste of money and time. There's a better way. Actually wrote an article about this not too long ago. Here is the summary on IndieHackers with a link to the full post within it - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/why-this-startup-lost-2-million-and-how-to-avoid-the-same-fate-b0b2b0c9e7
Every indiehacker should watch this video and get off reading and go back to work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsS5Qe_JSZM
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I think that helps a bit to narrow my focus. I am just going to focus on copy products with my personal touch/incremental improvements (which I am really good at), have marketing plan and get off social media.
BTW I used to live in San Diego too. Used to work at Qualcomm.
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No, that’s tech lead, a YouTuber