The Best Startup Advice You’ll Hear Today (and probably ever):
As an entrepreneur, you're probably itching to dive in and start building your new product or service. But before you start coding, designing, or manufacturing, I have a piece of advice that could save you a ton of time and money.
👉 Sell first, then build.
It's a simple concept, but one that many first-time founders struggle to embrace.
The truth is, you're going to have to sell your offering eventually. So why not start the sales process before you've even built anything?
The reason is that most entrepreneurs are passionate about the technical or creative aspects of their business, not the sales and customer-facing side.
Engineers love solving problems through code.
Product people thrive on validating new hypotheses.
Very few founders actually enjoy the hustle of selling.
But here's the catch - if you don't sell first, you risk pouring countless hours and resources into building something no one actually wants to buy.
How many Kickstarter campaigns have you seen fail to reach their funding goals? Or startups that burned through investor cash only to find their product didn't resonate in the market?
The solution is to do what Elon Musk did with the Tesla Model 3 - start pre-selling before you've even completed the final product. In under a week, Tesla took $300 million in deposits for a car that didn't exist yet.
You don't have to be Elon Musk to pull this off.
Any service provider, from software developers to construction contractors, knows the power of selling first.
As the founder, you need to be the one spearheading these initial sales efforts.
It's the best way to truly understand what your customers want and build something they're willing to pay for.
So, resist the urge to build it first.
Your future self (and company) will thank you.