8 product hurdles every founder must clear
https://review.firstround.com/8-product-hurdles-every-founder-must-clear-this-pm-turned-founder-shares-his-playbooks
Narrowing in on a market and finding the right customer. Building out the first version of the product. Teaching yourself how to bring it to market. Trying not to get lost on the journey to product/market fit. Sticking to a consistent vision, even as you eye new markets.
For point 3#: Interesting story about how to think of connecting to people who represent the target customer.
I think most people don't validate their product, because they don't know how to connect to the people of the target group!
No 3 still remains the most clear cut here
So many great hurdles to consider in this article.
I think one of the most important is No. 3: How can I validate my idea? And how to approach early customer conversions?
"In the very beginning, I really wanted to test and validate whether this was worth working on by seeing if people who I didn't know were willing to spend time with me to help co-create and develop this product."
You would be surprised how many start ups we work with that upon engagement with us as a design partner have not done a single iota of user research, validation or user testing. It boggles the mind in all honesty!
They have gone all in, invested, created a brand and been diligently hacking away for months before realising they have no clue on how to do that validation bit. And its heart breaking because that bit is really simple, and can be done on a shoe string budget if you really need to (although don't do this its bloody important).
My favorite little anecdote about this is how we recently helped a small climate tech startup avoid a bit of a PR disaster at launch. Their key feature was carbon offsetting for e-commerce businesses based on the blockchain. They were going to build a front end that allowed businesses to add markup onto climate offsets - This raised my eyebrows somewhat so we convinced them that we could speak to 10 large e-commerce brands on their behalf to do some validation and refinement of the designs before they built anything further.
Managed to get a research interview with one of the biggest sustainable clothing brands in the world, and the reaction to adding a markup on an offset was... well let's just say they were pretty angry at the mere suggestion haha!
We managed to help them slim down the feature set massively (saving them time and money) and got them data that helped them secure investment + have a much more successful launch. Even a few beta sign ups from the research sessions thrown in for good measure.
My advice, I know its fun to build and dive in. But build or design a basic fake front end or demonstration of your idea first. Then sit down with people and get them to use it. The things you will learn will 100% improve your business.
I have never done a research session where I didn't walk out with my mind blown.
Love it! Totally agree.