

Founding a startup: what are the first steps (other than building the product)? - cuppy

Okay, let's say you have an app idea.  You have an idea person and an engineer to build it.  You both have day jobs, you're going to start building this thing on the side as an MVP and try to get some traction with it before it becomes a full-time thing.  You don't really need anyone else to get this job done except for some crowdsourced UI.<p>What other things would you do right away?  Would you just build the app and see what happens? Any business-oriented things that you should focus on right off the bat, or can everything wait until you have a product in market?
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danielstudds
I'm 9 months in to my startup (consultancy/product combo for enterprise),
probably 2 weeks from having the first signed deal. I quit my day job June
2012. Then I wasted 6 months spinning my wheels.

What got me back on track? patio11 (<http://www.kalzumeus.com/greatest-hits/>)
and Amy Hoy (<http://unicornfree.com/>). The way they think about these things
is a much better match for how I think about the world than say Eric Ries
(that said, great book, and anyone involved in building a gragh db has my
whole-hearted admiration.)

Key things for me are:

-holy shit, you can charge $x0,000/week (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4805091>)? What am I doing wrong? What can I do to charge that much? No seriously, what can I do to charge that much? Thinking about that pretty solid for about a month changed the way I view things (both consultancy and product).

\- if you're doing it right, you're customers will tell you "shut up and take
my money" ([http://unicornfree.com/2012/shut-up-and-take-my-money-or-
how...](http://unicornfree.com/2012/shut-up-and-take-my-money-or-how-to-pitch-
so-people-will-listen)). I started off with an idea and was looking for a
customer. That wasn't fun. Starting with a customer and solving their problems
is much nicer.

Also: I'm reliably told that you don't need to quit your day job if your smart
about it. That said, doing this full time is pretty sweet.

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timjahn
Don't build anything yet.

Go out and talk to your potential customers. If you don't know who those are,
figure that out first. Learn about their problems, their pain points, how you
could fix things for them.

Then start with the simplest of simple products. Could be a simple Google Form
that submits info to a Google Doc spreadsheet. Or maybe it's a barebones HTML
one-page site with a single feature of your idea.

Don't build anything complex until money is coming in the door.

We wasted almost a whole summer on matchist (<http://matchist.com/talent>)
building features we thought our customers would want, only to talk to half of
them after and realize we should have been talking to them the whole time.
Needless to say, we'll never do that again. :)

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padseeker
I got a better idea - figure out the goal of your startup before you do
anything.

Do you want the freedom of owning/running your own business? Do you want to
make lots of money? Do you want to experiment with new technology? Do you want
the satisfaction of building something from start to finish, making all the
decision?

I think that is my biggest regret in building my startup - I did not have a
clearly defined outcome. Sure I want to make tons of money, add new skills,
learn ruby on rails, build something from scratch, add something to my resume,
learn how to start a business. But I think more than anything I wanted to
build something and see it to the end.

I did make some compromises along the way but building something and showing
it off as my own has been the biggest rewards.

If money was the most important thing I should have done things a lot
different, i.e. talk to customers early. Do you want to build something you
believe in even if people tell you it's not a good idea (I did) or do you want
to fill a need in the marketplace? Figure out what your highest priority
BEFORE you start building your startup. That is the best advice I can give
you, considering that I've been flailing away at my idea for 2.5 years, on and
off.

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warrenmar
I would do whatever I can to reduce the risks of it failing. You first need to
identify the things that could keep you from succeeding and eliminate those
obstacles. With an app, the most risk is probably product market risk. There's
probably very little technology risk. You need to build something that people
want. The only way to do that is to show it to people and see if they want it.
If you're waiting in line for something, you can show your app to people
around you. Watching people use your app also helps a lot with iterating. You
have some concept of how your apps works, but other people may not. Also
marketing to a specific target niche to gain traction. A good book for this is
Crossing The Chasm.

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philco
Talk to people, ASAP. Hone an elevator pitch, go to a coffee shop, and pitch
strangers the idea in exchange for buying them a cup of coffee.

Tell them it's your "crazy cousin's" idea, and that you don't think he should
quit his full time job for it, but you wanted to see what other people thought
of it before you got back to him. (This will make it so that they'll be more
honest with you. If they know it's your idea...they'll feel bad telling you it
sucks).

Are people giving you their business cards and asking you to email them when
it launches? That's the litmus test, make it so that people want what you're
pitching so bad that they GOTTA HAVE IT TODAY.

Otherwise, don't even bother building it.

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amongmany
It's been said below, but the first thing we did was throw up a 1-page "sign
up" site that included a 1 question survey as part of the process. It has told
us a TON. The data we've been able to capture has given us all the direction
we need to figure out where to go next. We're now working on getting v1 up and
running based on what we learned. And then we'll do it all again.

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smallbigfoot
Start talking with your intended target market to see what their thoughts are
about the idea. Make a mockup and a landing page (Visuals help tremendously).
Show both of these to your intended target market. Also reading books like The
Startup Owner's Manual by Steve Blank and The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. (I
know everybody say's read these books but they really are helpful)

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orangethirty
I would start making sales. You don't need much else. Product delivery can be
arranged once the check clears.

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chris_dcosta
The biggest and best advice, is to sort out your relationship/responsibilities
with your partner in the business.

Make it clear from the start and don't argue about it later.

