

Your 'Big Idea' Sucks - Oompa
http://techdrawl.com/your-big-idea-sucks/

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daeken
I couldn't agree more with the core concept here, which is: if customers
haven't told you they'd pay for it (either when asked directly or in the form
of giving you money), there's a good chance they're not going to.

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edw519
_...you need to spend as much time talking to prospective customers as you do
working on your product..._

Better yet, use your customers' day-to-day problems as seeds for your idea.
Better to scratch their itch than your own if you can. This would be a huge
head start.

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daeken
Even if you're directly targeting a known issue, it's very possible they won't
want to pay for the solution. A tight feedback loop is necessary in damn near
every product's development, I believe.

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rokhayakebe
I must respectfully disagree. You can ask people all day, but unless you put
them in front of a product and say click here, then it will be very hard for
them to see its value. Otherwise your prospects will be picturing your
application in their head, and noone knows how they visualize it.

If you are confident about your product, build a simple prototype in a short
amount of time and ship it for feedback.

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rjurney
What you are saying is exactly what Customer Development says to do, so you're
agreeing with the post, not disagreeing. Although perhaps I should have been
more explicit :) Its all in Steve Blank's book.

Concurrent product development and customer development is the way.

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rokhayakebe
I guess so. The Customer development model (customer discovery > validation >
customer creation > company building ) works best when you have a niche market
for enterprise applications. If you consider consumer apps, then how do you go
out and talk to consumers? "ASK HN:..?". Consumer applications, read free, are
doomed to follow the painful "Customer Acquisition and Adoption Model" . In
other words how fast do we sign up new users and how much do they use the
product.

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rjurney
Eric Ries talks about this at length, for consumer internet companies. Check
out the archives at <http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/>

In short: you can release a landing page before building, with a signup form
for interested peeps, and you can release early and often.

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betty_brown
Kind of agree, but nothing really new under the sun...

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rjurney
I get tired of writing this shit, but I do so because it seems like its not
getting through.

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jrockway
Your 'Blog' Sucks

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rjurney
Your 'Book' Sucks

