41–50 of 94 posts
I'd love to know where to find these people to interview. Where do I go, the supermarket, the park? Also I don't think my network is big enough to hit up a significant number for a new software idea aimed at a specific niche (ex used cars sales). Those are the pieces I've never been able to put together in all my time with the Lean Startup methodology.
you could re-title "How to make sure you talk yourself out of taking a risk and keeping your job" isn't the limitus test from zuckerberg you should have this burning desire to change the world in this particular way, and the burn should be so intense that you wouldn't even consider for 1 second keeping your job.
Zuckerberg ran his test drive in college. He reached his audience, sold them on Facebook, it worked, so he quit and did it full time. His burning passion was already validated when he took his huge risk. What we argue is you don't have to have a platform built out to get the same validation.
I'd love to know where to find these people to interview. Where do I go, the supermarket, the park? Also I don't think my network is big enough to hit up a significant number for a new software idea aimed at a specific niche (ex used cars sales). Those are the pieces I've never been able to put together in all my time with the Lean Startup methodology.
That is not really the hard part. It is a great excuse, and I use it myself to convince me I shouldn't look. But it's not really the hard part.
I'd love to know where to find these people to interview. Where do I go, the supermarket, the park? Also I don't think my network is big enough to hit up a significant number for a new software idea aimed at a specific niche (ex used cars sales). Those are the pieces I've never been able to put together in all my time with the Lean Startup methodology.
If you don't have the network, you have to build it. There's no real way around that. If you want to start a business and need to stress test your idea like this, you'll need to do outreach. Whether that's cold outreach or attending events or joining the right groups and communities, it's all about the legwork. But the point is you can still do that on your own time without making huge sacrifices. Taking the concept…
What am I to make of this? Is the fact I got 50 signups a signal the product has value and I should continue, or does the fact users don't return a signal the product is crap I should scrap it? I'm really at a loss here.
Of course consulting requires more in terms of people skills - you're basically "interviewing" every time you find a new client. But I think in some sense that's a hump to get over either way - there aren't many startups that don't benefit from founders having soft skills.
Sort of an orthogonal point to the article, of course.
I gave a talk at Dropbox called "How to start a business without quitting your day job" that I think delivers a lot of the punch on this page without the weird culty vibe. Give it a watch (for free, obviously) if you like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8UwcyYT3z0
Edit: damn, I love your presenting style. Keep it up man!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't have the network, you have to build it. There's no real way around that. If you want to start a business and need to stress test your idea like this, you'll need to do outreach. Whether that's cold outreach or attending events or joining the right groups and communities, it's all about the legwork. But the point is you can still do that on your own time without making huge sacrifices. Taking the concept…
So I have this problem, I built an mvp and signup page, attracted a lot of page views, got quite a few signups for the free tier (50 for example) and they were all of the type: sign up, login, look around, never came back. So using these 50 signups/emails as my network, I've done two things; emailed a survey link, and emailed just asking for feedback. And nothing, not one single response to either the survey, or the…
might help us to know a bit about what the product is, but is there something specific that users should be doing in this free tier? what % of the 50 are taking this action?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zuckerberg ran his test drive in college. He reached his audience, sold them on Facebook, it worked, so he quit and did it full time. His burning passion was already validated when he took his huge risk. What we argue is you don't have to have a platform built out to get the same validation.
yes but had Zuckerberg had his idea for facebook when he was older and already working, would he have quit and started working on it? I think his argument is facebook was so important to him, regardless if it was a viable business, there is no question to pursue it.