
How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps - jasonlbaptiste
http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/how-to-go-from-idea-to-launching-with-paying-customers-in-8-steps/
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jacquesm
I think this post is great but the period after launch is seriously
underexposed in all these 'how to start-up' articles.

Typically, if you're a hands-on person with the right attitude sooner or later
you'll figure this part out. Posts like this can help you ease the pain a bit
but then what?

You've just launched, you have a few paying customers (but not enough to be
profitable), your initial press powder has been shot. Traffic collapses to
near non-existent levels and your first customers do not seem to be going out
of their way to tell their friends about your product.

That's a _much_ harder problem to solve than just to get to the launch date.

Launching something is like a marriage, the first honeymoon period with a new
fledgling company.

If it works out during the 'dating' period you might end up marrying the wrong
company, or it may be the right one but it will require skills and expertise
that you do not have that go way beyond coding or talking to your existing
circle of potential customers.

That's when the real work starts. Getting to launch is the easy bit.

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jasonlbaptiste
500% agree here. You should write something about this. (My newest crusade is
to get anyone with any experience to start writing).

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placer14
Does there exist a library of the "best" startup focused articles written
across the net? Kind of a Digg-fashion voting system?

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icey
<http://techstartu.ps> is starting to gain some traction and is significantly
more focused on startups than HN is.

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jacquesm
3 comments in 24 hours ?

The articles are ok though (but quite a few got posted here as well).

But the discussion is just about non-existent. I've gotten a bit wary of HN
split-offs, they tend to be very short-lived.

I don't know what the main reason for that is, possibly it is simply that HN
is 'good enough' and that a splinter of it does not carry enough volume for
long term sustainability.

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binomial
I agree, there aren't enough people on techstartu.ps, but there were even
fewer earlier and it seems to be picking up. I'd guess that this one is here
to stay, especially since it's run by DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg.

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webwright
I really like this post.

The one thing I feel it's missing is the major step of vetting an idea. Is it
WORTH doing? I literally get cold emails every day from entrepreneurs who say,
"I've spent a big chunk of my life building this thing and none of the ways
I've found to acquire customers is working in a scalable way" (they generally
don't word it that way, but you get the gist). It's gut-wrenching.

Maybe that's a different post, but if you're building a startup for growth,
you could be running that company for years (remember, avg. time to liquidity
for a venture-backed startup is 8.7 years!). You should be careful to chase
ideas that aren't merely viable but GREAT market opportunities (or at least
products/markets that you LOVE). It's easier to swim downstream.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
I'm working on the vetting an idea post for OnStartups. It's a huge topic and
a very important one. A lot of entrepreneurs seem to vet their idea like VCs.
The criteria is somewhat similar, but it's not the best way to go about it.
We're talking vetting an idea internally before even going after simple
MVP/customer validation, correct?

~~~
webwright
Yep-- vetting the idea/market. (verbal) Customer validation can be a part of
that, I imagine.

I think you're right-- it's a big topic and people have radically different
frameworks ranging from "I just want some side income" to "I eventually want
my own island". The biggest thing that seems to trip people up is figuring out
(before they build it!) if there's a way to scalably acquire customers. Unless
people have a well-understood distribution channel they can tap and an ARPU
obviously high enough to buy customers through it, entrepreneurs generally
have to hustle (sell 1 customer at a time, beg for coverage, write targeted
linkbait, etc). And hustling doesn't scale. Hell, with some products/markets,
it doesn't work at all.

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Swizec
Great list, but I don't think you need the detailed spec. Same problem as
usual in developoment: the spec will be outdated by the time you're even half
done, when you're finished with the first version of the product your detailed
spec will be so woefully out of date (or a huge time sink to keep updated)
that you'll end up rewriting it.

What you do need is a defined documentation of your internal/public API's. If
the developers don't know how modules talk to one another that's a recipe for
fail. Then just to keep everything coherent, a rough skeleton to keep everyone
on track. Basically a mix between your step 2 and step 5.

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jasonlbaptiste
If you're doing a developer heavy app that requires an API, the API
documentation is insanely critical. I don't think I emphasized this enough.
I've been a complete lunatic (in a good way) about the API docs, response
calls, etc. You can have things ghetto at first I guess, but having detailed
responses is very important.

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Swizec
Yes, being pedantic about responses and stuff that's flying around is vital.
We can agree on that.

But keeping an insanely good db documentation and a bunch of other stuff feels
like overkill.

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iampims
Isn't it what SOAP + WSDL were supposed to solve?

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mkramlich
no that's the next buzzword silver bullet. stay tuned next week for that one.
;)

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metachris
What's missing between is "Get an idea about the competition in this market".

Some choose to completely ignore competition; I personally find it important
to have a bit of an overview.

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royrod
Good real-world stories and inspiration, Jason!

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mildavw
Agreed. I'm sending this to my co-founder!

Also, Jason, for an app (padpressed) that promises increased usability, the
text on the homepage is awfully hard to read. Here's how it renders in Chrome
for OS X:

<http://pimen.to/difficult-to-read-text.png>

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atldev
Good stuff. We're at step #3, and we're trying to strike the right balance
between gathering customer feedback (which brings waves of great ideas) and
making sure we're delivering only what we need to learn quickly. Step #4 might
be the hardest so far.

On that note, anyone interested in helping us with StartMetrics
(<http://startmetrics.com>)?

It's a service that tracks lean startup metrics for SaaS products. We're
currently inviting folks to sign-up for the beta test when it's available.
We'll also be sending a few customer development surveys.

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osopoderoso
I only read the comments. Usually the number seven is the magic number of
steps. There are many ideas and few paying customers for then. So there must
be some magic. How to transform sand into gold in five glorious steps, with an
introduction by Harry Pottter.

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weego
How to masquerade self-publicism as a how to?

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jasonlbaptiste
If you know me, I could really care less about the traffic one article brings.
Here's what I do care about: the comment I would have gotten - "Give us
examples please" So I gave everyone examples of what we did.

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auston
I do know you - you're the type of person that calls people who try to do you
favors & curse them out for not being able to get your startup on techcrunch.

~~~
jacquesm
Whatever you're talking about I think you've mistaken HN for your inbox.
Please take it to email, whatever your beef is.

Public mudslinging is to nobody's benefit.

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auston
I don't think I've made any mistakes here, today. Jason clearly said "if you
know me...". I do know Jason - so it's a data point.

My opinion of him is not one worth discussing here.

