When is a startup ready to start growing their audience and user base?
Hi all,
I was here thinking, when is a Startup ready to start growing their audience and user base? After their seed round? After more mature rounds like Series A?
Until then what do they do? Product development and talk to potential users?
I was wondering, not all startups are equal. Some get out from YC ready to explode, others keep on stealth mode some more months/years, and others simply die.
What do you think?
After product-market fit.
Until PM its just Product Development and talking to Users that's it?
Until product-market fit, I think the goal is product-market fit. So for me, that would mean talking to users and changing/improving your product based on what you are hearing. And getting early users. Growth before that doesn't make sense if you think about it, because what would you be growing? You first need to know what tool/app your users would pay for. And until PMF you 1) don't know what app that is and 2) you haven't built it yet.
@keyserfaty thank you very much! My question goes just because nowadays distribution becomes harder than building good products and just for that I think I would start by creating content, building a community, and only after would start to build the product. That way the day I'd launch I'd have people wanting to listen already
Yeah, that sounds good and I agree you should be thinking about distribution from the start. I do 50% distribution, 50% product development. I wonder if working only on content wouldn't keep you away from your goal of launching a product, except the product IS the content. But I never tried that approach, so I couldn't say.
Talking to people early on is like distribution to me, sort of direct sales. These people that agree to talk to you are usually interested in your product and could be potential customers. For me, that's a way of validating the idea/getting my first customers while I develop the product.
And one more thing, creating content alone does not validate your product idea, so I don't think you are REALLY gathering a group of people who would buy your product. You are just gathering people interested in your content, not necessarily your product. I think the only way to validate a product is to build one and have people use it and ask them to pay for it. Even if it's a very small thing.
Yeah, that's exactly what I think about the topic. I wasn't saying that you should just create content and not building the product. The thing I say is that you should do both at the beginning.
Even more, the earlier you are the better it is to start building an audience. That way, the day you launch you'll have people already ready to buy. Being those people the ones you have been talking to during all the development journey.
This reminded me of what we were discussing: https://stackingthebricks.com/year-of-hustle/freebies/printable-yearofhustle-cheatsheet.pdf
If you read nothing else on content creation while building your product, please read this article on Drift.
https://www.spyfu.com/blog/drift-case-study/
It's INCREDIBLE what those guys achieved 🚀