Lecture 4: Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing

I feel that this lecture generated less comments (maybe less upvotes too) than the previous lectures. I would guess that this is because we might think we are "so over all of this". I mean, we all think we already know this "get out of the building" and "talk to your customers". We think "c'mon, this is so basic, we are more sophisticated than that". And I think this is a mistake.

Underestimating this initial process, taking it for granted, we create the perfect environment to trick ourselves in not doing it. We might tell ourselves that our product is a SaaS for a very specific crown that we can only find online, and there is no street fair or postal office where we can find them. We might tell ourselves that a $100 Facebook Ads campaign is good for testing our assumptions. Or that is not necessary to get really immersed on our industry, because we already know what is wrong and how to solve.

These are all little lies that convince ourselves that our particular context is different. Sure it is. Sure you might not find your customers on the streets, but that is no excuse to not talk online to your customers, be constant presence on a forum, and arrange meetings with those who happens to be on your city.

Most of advice for startups out there are for those who already have some traction, a few employees. So people might skip the skills and attitude necessary to go from 0 to 100 users or customers. This is the perfect lecture for this crowd.

Re: Lecture 4: Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing

#7

Post by rajensanghvi » Fri, Oct 03, 2014, 2:48 AM UTC

30 Quotes from the Adora Cheung's lecture here: https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/30-quotes-from-ado...

One reason why I think this lecture probably hasn't generated as many comments/upvotes is because there may have been too many topics put into just 1 lecture. I think it may have been more effective if the content was split out into maybe 2 or 3 separate lectures that went into a bit more depth like.. -Building a product (covering the MVP, the decision process around what features are most important and what's not, etc) - Customer Development/talking to users (the environment to interview them, types of questions to ask them, types not to ask,etc) - Growth (different types of growth, what Homejoy focused on at each stage, potential challenges they went through etc)

I recognize that since it's a Stanford course, they are probably capped with the amount of time they have during the semester as well.

Re: Lecture 4: Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing

#8

Post by clairity » Fri, Oct 03, 2014, 4:16 AM UTC

soneca wrote: post #6

I feel that this lecture generated less comments (maybe less upvotes too) than the previous lectures. I would guess that this is because we might think we are "so over all of this". I mean, we all think we already know this "get out of the building" and "talk to your customers". We think "c'mon, this is so basic, we are more sophisticated than that". And I think this is a mistake. Underestimating this initial process…

this lecture definitely has the most practical advice so far (not that the others weren't good as well).

adora also spoke at the female founders conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eP3-ra8nZY) and her story about her and her brother's persistence in systematically climbing the learning curve of product/market fit was one of the most memorable. you can tell that she was speaking from real, hard-earned experience for each of the lessons she related in this lecture.

and i love that she threw in a basketball reference, even though you don't usually just throw the ball around. =)

Re: Lecture 4: Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing

#9

Post by prostoalex » Fri, Oct 03, 2014, 7:01 AM UTC

The reasoning behind the ad campaign is that if the ad price multiplied by conversion is below LTV, it's worth it.

This seems to be fine in a market with few other competitors, but in heavily contested categories (e.g., SaaS) shouldn't you be multiplying that by customer churn? Seems a bit presumptions to assume that once a customer signs up, they're going to spend 100% of assumed LTV with you and you only.

Re: Lecture 4: Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing

#10

Post by jlees » Fri, Oct 03, 2014, 8:03 AM UTC

soneca wrote: post #6

I feel that this lecture generated less comments (maybe less upvotes too) than the previous lectures. I would guess that this is because we might think we are "so over all of this". I mean, we all think we already know this "get out of the building" and "talk to your customers". We think "c'mon, this is so basic, we are more sophisticated than that". And I think this is a mistake. Underestimating this initial process…

It is far too easy to say "I know I know something" and mistake that for being able to do it when the time is right. This piece is the rocky piece, the point where it's easy to be carried away with enthusiasm for something you haven't built yet, add features on to a prototype no users have ever used, or simply not hear the truths we want to hear because they bruise our egos, our decisions, and our pride.

If you can't get in touch with your customers to get feedback at the earliest stage, how are you going to get them to use your product? And if you don't want to talk to customers because you're ashamed of the prototype or you want to show them something 'perfect', you'll never talk to them at all.