
Stuff I said at Kansas City Startup Weekend that sounded smart (2011) - Tomte
https://apenwarr.ca/log/20111116
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omarhaneef
I don't disagree with the spirit of doing user research before building
things, which is sort of the rage now, but I really think that if people are
reading this they should hear the counterpoint loud and clear:

Do not mislead your users.

Really, I can't imagine it makes such a difference to have coming soon. I
doubt -- though I don't know for sure -- that simply telling people you
already have the product is going to give you a company changing amount of
information.

In any case we should have benchmarks that will help. (Example: Perhaps the
"coming soon" tag costs you 50% of your signups, so just double the amount you
receive as an estimate, and then remove the tag after you build it).

~~~
dustingetz
the idea behind telling people you have a product is it gets them into a
presale funnel or at least mailing list which you can use as traction to raise
money

if you are bootstrapping, you don’t need to do this, but you do need to
compete with people who do this

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skrebbel
His MVP argument confuses me. I short, he suggests lying to your visitors, by
making a lead capture page that looks like the product already works. He does
not address the ethics, the karma or simply the bad business reputation of
lying about minor details such as "it works". This surprises me.

~~~
mattmanser
It's a common tactic and very sensible. Figure out if you can sell first, if
you can't, don't bother. If that bothers you, you probably shouldn't be in the
game of running a business at all. If absolute truth is more important to you
than a few fibs or a little half-truth, you'll find it difficult to run a
successful business.

It's the difference between spending $10,000s making something to find out
you're incapable of selling anything, or not.

I've made this mistake, twice too, getting too wrapped up in the dev.

It's stupid to do it that way round. I wasted a lot of money, and have got
burnt by a business partner that simply couldn't sell what we made despite
making all the right noises.

~~~
bachmeier
"If absolute truth is more important to you than a few fibs or a little half-
truth, you'll find it difficult to run a successful business."

Another example of free advice being worth what you pay for it. As someone
that buys things, I don't recommend this advice. (Maybe if the person that
posted it had some evidence beyond a short story it would be different.)

"I wasted a lot of money, and have got burnt by a business partner that simply
couldn't sell what we made despite making all the right noises."

Just throwing this out - maybe the inability to sell is correlated with the
first part of your post.

~~~
mattmanser
Sure, go waste your money speculatively building a product.

You don't have to do this of course if your price point is $10,000+, you could
go get agreement in principles if it's a bigger product.

But for smaller products that are online only signup? Getting all dewey eyed
over someone not getting their $10 p/m new to-do app, and go spend months
building it instead and then finding there's no market?

You're making the wrong call there. Test the market, prove you can sell it,
then make it. A couple of people not getting their $10 p/m app vs you losing
$10,000s on wasted time is worth that.

To be honest, as a professor what have you ever had to do business-wise?
You've never left academia apparantly. It must be nice to critize but I have
no respect for your advice.

~~~
Darkphibre
I think there _may_ be a difference between ethical market research to
determine demand, and "little lies" to potential customers that an application
is ready to sell.

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izzydata
Is there a big tech startup scene in the Kansas City area?

~~~
exabrial
Not really, but they do exist, and I've exclusively worked for startups or
small companies for 8 years now.

We only have a handful of large corp companies to supplement startup growth
(Garmin, Cerner, etc). Another commenter lamented about wages, but I've never
had an issue with that. The key is to position yourself as a big fish in the
small pond that is KC. To maximize your wage growth: The usual strategy of
"being an expert in X hottest sexy technology" doesn't work here, you have to
respond to the market wants.

The main benefit of KC is the extraordinarily low cost of living, easy
commute, and low population density. If you're an urbanite, you'll likely find
it too small. The benefits though are low taxes, low housing costs, little
government involvement in your personal life, quiet living, and the best
barbecue on planet earth.

~~~
karatestomp
Great Mexican food, too, and our fine dining is surprisingly decent,
considering. The rest of our food scene’s kinda overpriced and hit-or-miss on
quality but those are good.

Outdoors life’s shit unless your into hunting or fishing. Worst part about
living here, easily.

~~~
EADGBE
What would you like to see outdoors that you don't currently?

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exabrial
Nice set of mountains would be cool. Or move the Lake of the Ozarks two hours
closer.

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gumby
Apart from a small point I think this is excellent. In particular I am
disappointed by how easily people slip into thinking the name of the thing is
the thing.

The small point (more than a nit) is on “making a fake web site that appears
to crash.” But indeed, be as minimal as possible so you can do a lot of rapid
experimentation.

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dwmcqueen
Wait. I was there. That was you?

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metadaemon
I was there too!

~~~
antod
And you know what they said? Some of it was true!

