Build Your Product, Then Your Business
blog.mojotech.com
Build Your Product, Then Your Business
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#2Do we not have exactly the opposite problem within this community?
We know coding so we spend our time hacking away in dark rooms on product stuff such as frameworks, features, deployments, websites etc.
We leave considerations about marketing, distribution, customer research till later, and end up building something that we have no way to effectively market.
The order should probably be to develop the business model, then develop the product, and only add this kind of administravia in as absolutely necessary.
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#3Do we not have exactly the opposite problem within this community? We know coding so we spend our time hacking away in dark rooms on product stuff such as frameworks, features, deployments, websites etc. We leave considerations about marketing, distribution, customer research till later, and end up building something that we have no way to effectively market. The order should probably be to develop the business model…
This is more geared towards the administrative stuff that adds no value and is an excuse to doing actual work.
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#4Yes and no: some of that 'busywork' is pretty important if there's more than one founder and you don't want to deal with a major shitstorm when someone bows out and still wants a share, or some such similar situation.
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#5How about this?
Build an experiment, then your product.
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#6How about this? Build an experiment, then your product.
Isn't the product the experiment?
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#7Do we not have exactly the opposite problem within this community? We know coding so we spend our time hacking away in dark rooms on product stuff such as frameworks, features, deployments, websites etc. We leave considerations about marketing, distribution, customer research till later, and end up building something that we have no way to effectively market. The order should probably be to develop the business model…
Building the product is the easy part of the work. First we have to sell. Here is the summary of my experiences:
[http://www.drdacademy.com/?id=first-solve-the-selling-proble...]
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#8In the past, no one ever seemed interested in the ideas I'd come up with. I gave up on finding someone to pair up with from the start and spent most of my free time working on a prototype for http://www.socialocale.com . I posted about it in a FB status and the next day a coworker came in and said "let's make this happen!" We've been working on just that ever since.
It really helps persuade people that your idea is worth it when they see that you were driven enough to spend your free time to bring it into existence. It actually probably tells them that 'you' are worth their time moreso than your current idea.
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#9Do we not have exactly the opposite problem within this community? We know coding so we spend our time hacking away in dark rooms on product stuff such as frameworks, features, deployments, websites etc. We leave considerations about marketing, distribution, customer research till later, and end up building something that we have no way to effectively market. The order should probably be to develop the business model…
Figuring out what to do after you build a product is only hard if you don't plan to sell the product. For example, if you build a consumer-oriented service that you plan to offer for free, then, yes, developing the business model is hard. And by looking at lots of "pageview-successful" startups who are still trying to make their first dime of revenue, it may take years to graft a successful business model to a free service. Hell, I think Twitter is still working on this.
But if you build a product that you want because it fits a need that you have, then it'll probably fit other people's needs as well. And then you attach a price to it, and then people pay for it, just like any other types of goods that people purchase. Examples of products with simple business models? SaaS apps with monthly subscriptions. Build a good product, charge a fee to use it. Yes, you still have to figure out how to market it, but since the big hurdle is getting people to hand over money for the thing you built, you're well on your way.
(And, just one more clarification, talking to potential customers and integrating their feedback while you build the product and making sure that at each step you're building something people want is a good way to make your marketing/distribution problems a lot simpler.)
Re: Build Your Product, Then Your Business
#10How about this? Build an experiment, then your product.
Isn't the product the experiment?
Not necessarily. You could build a smoke test (experiment) for a SaaS solution for dog owners (product)
You have your vision, but before you go into building a product, you test your target market.