You want to know what real pain looks like? Building a product you believe in and having no idea how to get your market's attention. This is perhaps the biggest reason I've seen companies die in my 16 years as a coach and advisor.
Entrepreneurs are taught to "launch fast," but that doesn't mean to "launch first." You should not build a product until you can reliably predict the answers to the following questions:
* What's your biggest problem in X area?
* What's the impact of this problem?
* What happens if you don't solve this problem in the next 12 months?
* How have you previously tried to solve this problem?
By the time you KNOW the answers to these questions, you will have learned how to reach your market and solved the single biggest problem you will face in the first few years of your company. Getting attention is everything in your first 24 months.
"But, Eric," you say. "We've already built our product. Is it too late for us to fix this?"
No! You can go back to customer discovery today, regardless of whether you have a finished product.
The hardest part for you will be to temporarily give up selling. You can't do honest customer discovery when you want a specific answer. You can't learn and influence at the same time -- your brain is working in opposite directions in those opposing cases.
If you need to cut burn in order to extend your runway, so be it. That's what Bild did years ago, and now Pradyut Paul and team are absolutely crushing it. Cutting expenses temporarily is hard; it hurts. Shutting a company hurts even more. So give yourself time.
I've yet to see a team that couldn't ultimately build the product or service they envisioned. I've met hundreds of teams that built a product and then were stuck at "now what -- how do I get in front of clients." Solve for the real challenge first.
#startups #customerdiscovery #businessstrategy