“Most startups develop products that nobody needs”

A few years ago I heard a lecture by a really impressive speaker, and I remember how bad I felt when he said, on stage, that “most startups develop products that nobody needs.” I was embarrassed. Maybe angry is a better word. Offended. How can you say that? Look at the brilliant people in the audience. Are we all working on things that nobody needs? Seriously?

He was right.

Most startups develop products that nobody needs. Including many of my friends. Including myself, in different parts of my career. At this point you’re probably thinking, are you talking to me? Do you really think that the app I built that helps me schedule my dog poop is not needed? Of course it is needed. Everybody needs it. Dude! We will IPO!

So wait, let me explain. Maybe someone does need the very cool app you are working on. However, the fact is that most startups fail to reach the market. And if they do get to sell their product, they do that with low numbers and eventually those companies shut down. And yes, there are many other reasons and challenges and environmental variables, including timing and competition and financing and market condition and technology and talent and so much more. Yes, I know all about it, but I argue that these are not the main problems.

Many of us have made this mistake. You get up in the morning, and while walking the dog or brushing your teeth or on the way to kindergarten with your kids, an amazing idea pops up, and you just code it and ship it. Like right now. Because you truly believe that everyone around also has this problem and they would be so happy to find out that there is such a great solution for it. Because there are so many dogs and so many dog owners, and what is everyone’s biggest problem? Right! What I said before.

People in general, and entrepreneurs in particular, easily fall in love with their own ideas. It is very natural to think that everyone has a problem like the one that I have, and the investors, well, allow me say very carefully, without insulting anyone specific, that the money in the market in general is very very stupid. Again, nothing personal, it is just that most investors know much less about the problem and the solution and the product and the market than you do, and most of them don’t bother to check what you haven’t checked, for all kinds of reasons. Many of them simply have too much money that needs to be invested quickly. So, as they say, “shut up and take my money.”

So how do you solve all this? The answer is validation.

There are so many people who keep using that word to describe so many different things. There are fake landing pages and fake doors, and hidden buttons on websites, and a/b tests and tons of other methods — all of them are great. My favorite one is to actually talk to people and learn from their answers to determine whether I’m going in the right direction.

Let’s start with the fact that for a good validation you need relevant users. There is no point in running a survey with your friends on Facebook. Your friends are not interesting. You need to talk to as many strangers as possible who are as similar to your target audience as possible.

You can find them in relevant social media forums and you can try to find them physically on the street in places where they hang out. You can also do that by running sponsored ads campaigns or simply writing a post on LinkedIn saying that you are looking to interview dog ​​owners for 10 minutes for the purpose of developing a product that will make dog owners life better.

And there is one more way that I like the most and. Search for these people with LinkedIn Navigator. Let’s search for people with 6 years of experience who work in a company with more than 1,000 employees whose title includes mobile and their skills include Flutter.

And now, these people, why would they want to talk to me? First, when you connect with a stranger on LinkedIn, you have to be polite, sensitive and considerate. If it were possible to connect my LinkedIn to a fan, we could generate electricity from the amount of messages I receive. (Is that a great idea! Where are the investors!)

So to get answers I like to contact people with a certain title from a profile that has the exact same title. Want to contact mobile developers? Apply from a profile of a mobile developer. Want to contact Cisos? Be a Ciso! UX designers? Quality managers? HR managers? You got it. Right?

The chances of me answering a message increases by an order of magnitude if it is sent from someone who looks like me. If it was sent by a salesperson I might even not read it. But if I am a website builder and I received an inquiry from a website builder? Finally someone normal contacts me on LinkedIn!

If any of my friends from the testing industry are reading it, if you are trying to reach out to mobile testing professionals on LinkedIn, why don’t you change your title from “Sales Development Rep” to “Mobile Testing Expert”? You are welcome.

And back to our validation challenge, it is also very important to add a message that sounds human and does not sound like a bot. Hi Chris, I’m a UX designer and looking to connect with designers like you in order to learn from the best, hope you accept new connections :) or something like that. Or maybe I sound like a bot? I don’t know. Give it a try.

If you send 50 connection requests a day and 10 get approved, at the end of the month you’ll have 300 new connections.

Wait a few more weeks and send them a personal request.

“Hi Chris, I hope it’s okay to contact you via LinkedIn, we just connected a little while ago. I’m working on a new product that solves a big problem for UX designers and I am looking to talk to experienced people in our field. I don’t have a product yet, I’m not here to sell anything but looking to learn. Any chance you are available for a 10 minute call to answer a few questions that will help me understand the market and build a mind blowing product? Thank you so much!”

This process can be done with automatic tools or manually. I highly recommend doing it manually, at least at first. Only when you are fully confident and ready to scale look for automation.

And now, when I’m already talking to my new friend, my favorite way to do this user research is to go around the user in circles, without getting too close. I would ask as many questions as possible that will help me understand if this is the client I am looking for or maybe this is the client I should be looking for. I would mostly be interested to know if the problem I am trying to solve is a real problem, long before I try to understand if the solution I have is the right solution.

Let’s say we were to develop a dog walking app. I would look for dog owners and start by asking them: What is your dog’s name? How many hours a day do you spend with him? What does he like to do when he’s bored? What does he like to eat? What toys does he like?

Then, after breaking the ice, I’ll get a little closer to the target and ask how much money do you spend on food per month? Do you buy the cheapest food from a store or are you looking for a high quality product? Do you buy him toys or does he play with whatever he finds?

At this point I understand in general if the person I’m talking to is one of those who spends money on the dog or not, and get a little closer asking how many times a day do you take him out for a walk? And when you’re at work, who takes your dog for a walk? Did you happen to call a friend or family member when you’re at work to take the dog out? Have you ever been at work and come home early to take the dog out? Would you trust a stranger to take the dog out?

The million dollar question is would you pay someone to take out the dog for you. I don’t like to ask this question because the answer is usually yes and it means nothing. It is very easy to say yes but you are guessing about yourself. You don’t really know if you will pay. This question might be an interesting question only if it comes with a follow up question that says we are now trying to sell a two-year subscription for the price of two months. It will cost only 19.99. Would you like to buy a subscription for the next two years at a 90% discount? If so, can I have your credit card number? Now, that is a question whose answer is super relevant. Not a speculation. Show me the money.

After a series of questions like these, I put all the information in a spreadsheet and try to understand what I have learned. Out of that many people, a certain number are really bothered about the dog when they are in the office, and another part really asked someone to take the dog out, and a few even agreed to give me a credit card.

This process is good not only for the building of a new startup but also for a pivot or feature in an existing product.

If you are an entrepreneur, you must know how to dream and use your imagination and gut feelings to create mind blowing products. And at the same time, you must validate your assumptions so that you won’t waste the best years of your career on a dog poop scheduling app.

Talk to the people around you. They are just waiting for you to ask them a question.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — -

My good friend Tomer Sharon wrote the great book “Validating product ideas” that explains how to be sure that an entrepreneur doesn’t waste his best years on an idea that only he likes. Warmly recommended.

Check out my previous posts:
Geo Target Magic

How to call Self Serve Customers, when to call and what to say.