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Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

derrickreimer.com

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Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#141

Post by mritchie712 »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #110

The Paul Graham essay on start up ideas comes to mind [1]. Everybody kinda wanted this product but they didn't need the product. This paragraph sums it up: > The danger of an idea like this is that when you run it by your friends with pets, they don't say "I would never use this." They say "Yeah, maybe I could see using something like that." Even when the startup launches, it will sound plausible to a lot of people.…

He did get people to pay before even launching, so I don't know if reading this would have swayed him much. He had a considerable amount of positive signals. The lesson may have been how much these signals were skewed by the source of the signal (e.g. fans of his podcast).

Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#142

Post by jnwatson »

davidivadavid wrote: post #34
iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I say it every time, to every founding team I meet. Read “The Mum Test”[1]. It will make you aware that you to get unbiased feedback you need to remove your identity from the idea so that people aren’t nice to protect you. [1] http://momtestbook.com/

I also keep recommending this book to everyone. The TL;DR is: NEVER ask questions about hypotheticals. Ask people about what they do, how much they pay, how much time it takes, and so on. Facts, not answers to "Would you use this if...?"

Interestingly enough, that’s also a principle of behavioral interviewing. Hypothetical questions allow the bullshitters to shine, but specific targeted lines of question about what the interviewee did in a specific situation is frequently enlightening.

Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#144

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

sdenton4 wrote: post #79
davidivadavid wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also keep recommending this book to everyone. The TL;DR is: NEVER ask questions about hypotheticals. Ask people about what they do, how much they pay, how much time it takes, and so on. Facts, not answers to "Would you use this if...?"

Indeed! One of the things I found frustrating about the article is that he talks about people 'lying' constantly... when if fact he had just asked meaningless questions.

He used the word lying. They didn't know they were lying.

They were miswanting. And it's a HUGE glossed over fact when talking to customers.

Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#145

Post by mixmastamyk »

rpedela wrote: post #41
AznHisoka wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it is extremely hard. Lean Startup makes it sound trivial when it's almost impossible. Almost nobody is going to clear up their day to talk to you about their problems, answer your questions, give you feedback, be your guinea pig, etc. The ideal way to validate it is to be so immerse in the industry/problem such that you understand most of the pain points. Do the job that your ideal customer is doing. Attend the…

I agree overall but it's not that hard to get people to talk to you if done a certain way. If you are trying to sell them while talking, yes that will be hard/impossible. However if you approach it as learning from experts, then I find people are much more receptive because most people like to help and feel important/useful. I always say I want to learn from them and offer to pay for their time which shows them I und…

Pay could be a fancy lunch while discussing the issues.

Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#146

Post by cardine »

AznHisoka wrote: post #12
danvoell wrote: post #4

"The gist is that it’s tough to get unbiased feedback during customer validation." - I wish this was taught along with lean startup content. Too many times I have heard founders say they validated the idea when all they have done is gotten biased feedback while asking self-fulfilling questions.

Yep, it is extremely hard. Lean Startup makes it sound trivial when it's almost impossible. Almost nobody is going to clear up their day to talk to you about their problems, answer your questions, give you feedback, be your guinea pig, etc. The ideal way to validate it is to be so immerse in the industry/problem such that you understand most of the pain points. Do the job that your ideal customer is doing. Attend the…

I agree entirely with your second paragraph. With that being said, I do think it is very possible to test unbiased product-market fit. Simply do the promotional channels you would do if you had a product and pretend you have the best version of your product already and see if anyone will bite.

For instance, cold call companies and pretend you have the best version of your product on the phone or create a landing page that offers your "future product", buy PPC ads, and get people to fill out a lead gen form.

In both cases, once you talk a little bit, let them know the product is still under development and ask if they'd like to be contacted again once development is done.

Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#147

Post by aliswe »

_uhtu wrote: post #9
nategri wrote: post #7

Is "a year" supposed to add a lot of impact here?? I frequently spend multiple years on more dubious endeavors, and have zero regrets about it. That's life. Edit: Okay this came out pretty harshly, but what I am poorly trying to express is that most people spend more time on worse things, so "a year" doesn't parse as the intended intensifier for me.

There's no need to be so judgemental of a well written article describing someone else's experience, even if it isn't as grand and wonderful as yours.

Thatcs actually supposed to be read as encouraging, as he said the guy did something better than him and in a shorter time. And thus he should feel less remorse than he does, which he doesn't. If that makes sense...

Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#149

Post by dangero »

I have a lot of similar thoughts about Slack and also had the idea to go head to head with it a couple of years ago. I partnered with a PHD researcher who had expertise in the area of focus.

Before I started building I launched a paid sales campaign to see if people would be interested with a mocked up website looking like we already had the product. I had a lot of website visitors, but nobody signed up for a demo. Not one person. At that point I realized that whether or not the product was a good idea, I didn't know how to sell it, so I ditched the idea, deleted the test website and moved on.

Re: Walking Away from the Product I Spent a Year Building

#150

Post by travisjungroth »

mritchie712 wrote: post #140
RaceWon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I'm getting at is that, its really difficult to get people to love something you build unless you love it yourself This reminded me of a quote which is totally the opposite, and imo more accurate: "Most entrepreneurs fall in love with the wrong thing. They fall in love with their products and their business when they should be falling in love with their clients and customers" -Jay Abraham Both sentiments are h…

Best case scenario: you are the customer. In this case, both sentiments can be true.

Turns out that the real productivity hack was learning to love yourself.
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