

Your first customer as a co-founder - prez
http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Your+first+customer+as+a+cofounder

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jessicarios
The difficult part is product development. Just because one is a software
engineer doesn't mean that one necessarily has good ideas for new products. It
would be much like a great cook doesn't necessarily know how to create a
restaurant. The skills needed for entrepreneurial success are different than
those needed for software engineering. In reality, starting a great company is
much closer to starting a restaurant than it to simply making quality meals.
One has to know what to make as much as knowing how to make what you make into
something people actually want to buy.

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mvkel
This is very true! When we finished building Localist, our first partner was
Johns Hopkins University. While the core of our product was pretty solid, the
intricate changes related to workflows and UI came almost entirely from the
school's feedback. We wouldn't be nearly as successful as we are today without
their guidance.

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blrgeek
Coincidentally, we're doing exactly this in my new company, since the last
couple of months.

Would love to get the pitfalls of doing this and what we need to be careful
about.

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0x12
One of the most common pitfalls is to customize to that first customers
business processes without noticing that everybody else does things
differently.

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studiofellow
Many others have said this, but another way to make sure you don't fail at
launch is to market before you write a single line of code. Start by building
an email list. Plus, then you'll know where to find that first customer/co-
founder as discussed in the post.

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pge
this is great advice, but I would add a caveat. Don't become a custom dev shop
for that customer. Listen to your custoemr but make sure he remains a customer
and not your product management or test/QA function.

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mvkel
Absolutely. Keep your product opinionated, but always listen to feedback.
Being a custom dev shop = a huge cost center.

