See a book called "The Mom Test".
It's a great book. I recommend it to all tech guys.
Sales mistakes that software engineers make
41–50 of 204 posts
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#42> Sales Mistake #1 - Building Before you Start Selling (...) If you’re wrong, you’ll save time and money by not building something people don’t want. I fell into this trap often, so I know it well. The reason why we don't ask first is, we want to build something . Anything. If we're "wrong", we won't "save" time and money, we will delay the moment we start making, maybe indefinitely. What if we never find something p…
Very lucid comment. I would just object to your harsh "it's irrational and probably stupid..." final remark.
It's not irrational and stupid. Building something allows you to sharpen your skills, validate your abilities, engage you to the problem you want to solve for real.
cheers
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#43While the read was interesting and bring solid points, I strongly disagree with the majority of the arguments. >The biggest mistake I see developers make is assuming that they are building something that people both want and will pay a meaningful amount of money for. Lots of projects were build with no exact plan on how to monetize them of if there would be customers to buy it. They just had a vision about how X or Y…
">The best way to do this is by asking good questions, and then listening carefully and taking notes Again I strongly disagree here. This pattern pushes entrepreneurs to create a version++ of something" ... --> not if you are actually listening! Listening is not about 'let them tell us what feature they want' ... it's 'problem discovery'. This is maybe the most valuable thing because young devs with 0 exposure to how…
It all comes down to domain knowledge, I believe, where it is hard to provide good solutions without actually knowing anything about the type of problems being under scrutiny.
There are other types of generic problems, e.g. word processing, but those domains are often overpopulated with solutions where it is either hard to compete or hard to earn money.
The point you are making is that it is worthwhile to invest in understanding a problem domain well and the more specific it is, the more you have it for yourself :)
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#44> Sales Mistake #1 - Building Before you Start Selling (...) If you’re wrong, you’ll save time and money by not building something people don’t want. I fell into this trap often, so I know it well. The reason why we don't ask first is, we want to build something . Anything. If we're "wrong", we won't "save" time and money, we will delay the moment we start making, maybe indefinitely. What if we never find something p…
I have also been here too many times to count.
My take on it is that it's not a failure as long as you've learned something.
In my case, for the first number of projects I built that nobody bought/wanted, I didn't learn to find the market first (sadly), but I did learn a huge amount about how to build things.
Now I can build better things faster - but I'm actively learning to find the market.
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
">The best way to do this is by asking good questions, and then listening carefully and taking notes Again I strongly disagree here. This pattern pushes entrepreneurs to create a version++ of something" ... --> not if you are actually listening! Listening is not about 'let them tell us what feature they want' ... it's 'problem discovery'. This is maybe the most valuable thing because young devs with 0 exposure to how…
It all comes down to domain knowledge, I believe, where it is hard to provide good solutions without actually knowing anything about the type of problems being under scrutiny. There are other types of generic problems, e.g. word processing, but those domains are often overpopulated with solutions where it is either hard to compete or hard to earn money. The point you are making is that it is worthwhile to invest in u…
It's not just the problem domain though - there are issues that are very specific in the 'real world' that are not apparent to those even who understand the problem domain well, especially if it's a true B2B style product. Second, is understanding the mindset and uses cases of buyers. Tech people tend to way over-estimate the sophistication of users, and also underestimate how hard it often it is to do basic things.
I once worked for a huge high tech company in Product Marketing, we wanted to run this simple program to reach out to some users. Our problem? We had to host a few images and bits of content and we literally had nowhere to host them. Seriously. Just a few images. We had no production capability for that ... even working with the marketing ops teams ... they have complicated tools and content management systems unsuited to 'just hosting a file'.
We reached out to our customers (carriers like AT&T) so that maybe they could host. Same problem! We're talking business unites of major high tech corporations here unable to just host a file.
Want to use S3? Or whatever? Enter 'legal'. Make a request to the legal department, maybe get a response in a month. Maybe.
It was eerie and funny and sad ... but it was a real eye opener.
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#46Surprisingly good one. Usually it is "not asking high-enough prices" kind of bullshit. I have been burned by 1 and 3 more than once. Also I have lots of ideas which actually have no real demand, like to list cheap, remote, nice and quiet, organic locations in Asia yet suitable for remote working and long-term stay, like Sikkim or Nepal or Ladakh (order of magnitude cheaper than Thai coast line). But, unfortunately, t…
I would buy account on such service, and I bet I know a few more guys that would pay for such information with details and human reviews.
These are basically village home-stays with 3G/4G internet, and when people realize this they abandon the prospect. ;)
Also there are some visa restrictions - in some places you could stay up to 60 days, Indian visa is usually just 3 months.
Nevertheless, remote Indian and Nepalese hilly areas are absolutely wonderful.
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#47Selling something before you make it is highly unethical. You have no idea if you can actually make it, so you run the risk of committing fraud. Additionally, such a strategy could only work if what you're making is very simple. If it's complex, is your customer really going to be okay with "please sign here and we'll get it to you in the next year."
Have a dream. Turn it into a vision. Make a business plan. Create an MVP. Then go try to sell it and listen to the feedback.
I'd you're wrong, then suck it up and deal with the consequences of failure. Failure is never fatal; it's the courage to continue that counts.
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#48Selling something before you make it is highly unethical. You have no idea if you can actually make it, so you run the risk of committing fraud. Additionally, such a strategy could only work if what you're making is very simple. If it's complex, is your customer really going to be okay with "please sign here and we'll get it to you in the next year." Have a dream. Turn it into a vision. Make a business plan. Create a…
The point is to first validate your idea by asking people if they're actually willing to pay for your service, hypothetically. I don't think the author means actually setting up a contract where the potential interested parties actually pay you upfront for a service that doesn't exist.
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#49the fourth mistake is visiting your site. why do you need 40+ cookies to track visitors?
Furthermore, on Firefox 55 and uBlock Origin only the first 2 paragraphs are shown. Luckily outline.com works once again: https://www.outline.com/eACAzB
Tip: Site rendered fine with master JavaScript switch disabled.
Re: Sales mistakes that software engineers make
#50I can resonate with this so much. Just recently I had an idea for a product and rushed to building it because it “solved” a problem. But then when it came to trying to get some sales it has been a failure. The only people that were willing to buy the product didn’t understand it. When starting out in my opinion if you don’t have a large network of people in the tech industry it’s important to focus on products that e…
I think a similar issue is rushing to fix something in an industry you have no experience of. You might not think you need to know about property before you start an AirBnB but actually they had to learn from mistakes and wrong assumptions, fortunately they were agile enough to pivot.
Engineers often assume that everything is as simple as "my product can do that, please pay me money" when there are a raft of other blockers in certain industries, some already mentioned above. The more you understand these before you start, the less time you spend trying to understand e.g. why a hospital won't just buy some random new product even though it promises to fix a big problem.