Why I've been building the wrong things - Tips for not doing this.
Failure sucks.
I've personally eaten rocks when it comes to launching successful products.
Sure I've had one or two product hunt launches that have gotten upvotes but all that ever resulted in was fly-by users who looked, signed up but did not stick around.
Success (for me) is creating a product or service that people would be really happy to pay for. I've always fallen short, and have wondered why?
I'll be honest - I only ever built products that I found interesting.
Everyone says that you should talk to potential customers .
I never did that.
Everyone says you should ask them the right questions.
Questions like - "How much would you pay for this?" don't make the cut.
I never did that.
As I learnt more about how to find, reach out to, and learn from potential customers I realized that there needed to be a structured platform that could take anybody through this.
I built (YourHundred) https://yourhundred.com?utm_source=producthunt&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=product-hunt for exactly that.
I'll be going through a pivot of one of my existing failed apps using YourHundred as a platform.
Hi Nana, I explored a very similar concept with a would-be cofounder a couple of years ago.
Here is what we found during that painful time:
1 - There is very low value in solving a one-off problem like market discovery (even if we found paid users, they would churn as soon as their goal is reached). Contrast that with my current business, which solves an ongoing business need : Businesses that create video content, tend to keep creating. (Plus we host the videos, so we are sticky)
It took a lot of looking for us to figure out an ongoing problem rather than a one-off problem.
2 - The "one-off problem" situation is even compounded by the fact that your target users are not-yet-in-business, which means they often don't value the tools enough to invest.... since they don't even know if this business idea has merit, most of them don't want to spend ahead of validating. And if they validate, they don't need the tool anymore.
Again, contrast that with the business we ended up building, where we take people who already spend time and money getting their videos done, and we offer another place to spend (less of) their money to get (better) videos done.
3 - This is complex to say, but I'll give it a shot : I think the "scratch your own itch" angle is a double-edged sword. Yes, once you've solved a big costly problem for yourself it's super valuable to create a solution for others if they're willing to spend to solve it too. But sometimes we end up on the wrong side of the adage: we hit our heads on a problem, and we decide, since it's obviously a thick and high wall, to try and help others over it. But if we haven't solved it ourselves, then we have no clue how high the wall is and how likely our customers are to get over it.
In this case, I'm concerned you'll be getting this problem. If you had trouble nailing the market discovery part, you're now compounding the issue because you have to solve this for you (to sell YourHundred) AND you have to solve it for YH's buyers. That's a tall order.
So what would I recommend?
I think you can iterate around the initial idea, to figure out if there is a market segment that is willing to pay, on an ongoing basis, to solve a problem that is interesting to you (which could be related to the initial premise of YourHundred, or could not).
It's not easy, I know. But having built several successful (non-software) businesses I've seen the same pattern and I'd like to save you some of the pain I went through myself :-)
Sébastien
+1 listen to @Nuro he nailed it, i am of the same opinion.
Appreciate the thoughtful and super-helpful feedback Sébastien. I think you're absolutely right. Finding the right market segment that is willing to pay on an ongoing basis will be the true test for YourHundred - since churn is naturally baked into the product. Here are some of my thoughts for approaching some of the problems you've outlined - please feel free to absolutely rip apart my logic (it helps me learn =) ).
Be in the business of helping the Generators.
-- Generators are entities in the business/innovation ecosystem who're tasked with helping to generate or accelerate startups. So focusing on
*Certain Accelerators
By focusing on these entities, I'll be able to position YourHundred as a value-add tool that helps their startups in the market discovery validation stage. This would also mitigate the "one-off" nature of market discovery because it would be offered to the "Generator".
What are your thoughts on taking that route Sébastien?
Also would love to hear how you went about acquiring your first users for the initial startup that you and your co-founder were working on. What were some of the things you tried that worked or didnt work?
Thanks once again for the very insightful feedback!
Ah this idea (appealing to the accelerators/incubators/programs) seems much more solid.
In that case, your landing page needs a major revamp because you're now a full-on B2B solution. You don't "Discover Problems That Potential Customers Will Pay YOU To Solve" anymore.
You "Ensure your startup founders get to product-market fit faster, reliably" or something like that ; because you speak to the accelerator/uni entity, not to the founder anymore.
It's a widely different go-to-market strategy too, because you no longer speak to a sole decision-maker. Don't make the switch lightly.
Regarding the second question:
"how you went about acquiring your first users for the initial startup that you and your co-founder were working on"
What ended up happening is my would-be tech cofounder (we had been partners in a previous SaaS which did 7 figures in GMV the first year, so we had some experience working together) wanted to be a majority holder along with a 3rd person. However, I was the person with the vision and the subject-matter knowledge.
So I made the math and realized I could either get in at a very minority stake to delegate my vision to them ; OR I could take ownership of my vision and build something myself.
I took that route. Since I had outlined 5 "silver bullet" solutions that didn't exist in the market, I ended up picking a different one to start with, because:
a. I did not want to compete with my friend on the first idea if he decided to pursue it without me (he didn't, but he could have), and
b. I believed that the product I'm working on is a stronger wedge into the market and will drive more affiliate traffic than the market-discovery product. However I do have an angle on the market-discovery product that nobody's executed yet, so I think I can still pull it off a couple years down the line unless someone figures out that little piece of insight in the meanwhile.
I talked about having a unique insight in this comment. I think it's super valuable if you can dig deep enough to find one.
For instance, my current startup (https://nuro.video ) is built on two insights:
Cheers for the advice Sébastien!
I could only understand the problem that yourhundred solves but not how it does it unless I scroll down and read that long text in small fonts.
Appreciate the feedback wyeem - I'll update the landing page to be a bit clearer.