Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 21
Previous Notes:
Observations from experiences on company building:
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 1
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 2
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 3
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 4
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 5
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 6
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 7
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 8
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 9
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 10
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 11
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 12
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 13
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 14
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 15
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 16
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 17
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 18
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 19
- Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 20
Observations from experiences on company building:
- Product Adoption:
- Product adoption is the holy grail. A large amount of funding raised does not matter. Famous investors will not be able to save your startup. High-flying employees may jump ship when things go south.
- For a moment, take off the founder hat. And don the hat of a public market investor. Assume this investor has observed your journey from the concept stage. In the eyes of this investor, your startup is a commercial experiment. In essence, the best love is from users.
- Users adopt a product if it solves a specific problem for them. That is the absolute starting point. Pricing, distribution, marketing, et. al. comes afterward.
- Many founders go through the painful decision to shut their startup. Not being able to get product adoption is the main reason. Understanding this simple fact from early on helps. Ingrain this within the ethos of everything you do.
- Another common issue is that adoption is not always "logical". As a founder, you may feel your team has created an amazing product. Users may think otherwise. One could say that logic lies in the mind of the customer!
- After initial adoption, scaling to find more users is another story. It is like crossing a chasm. An external way is to say the market is sizable.
- Once you get a handle on adoption, some vital factors come into play. User stickiness and frequency of use are two excellent metrics.
- Smart founders consume what they build. Use your product. Poke holes with a critical mindset. Test it for corner cases. Change the design if usability sucks. Let a rational mind prevail over emotions.
- Find the first few customers. Even better is to get a benevolent tough customer. Treat them like royals and leverage their feedback. Make it a constant part of product development. Think of these iterations as more than one good brain working on your product.
- Most founders will experience some depressing times during this process. When this happens, treat it like life. Some people get things early, some get it later. Keep going since that is why you created the startup!
Let's Talk: If you have a true experience that resonates, please send me an email.
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