5 steps to building something that people love
…quicker and for less money
Too many entrepreneurs are just out to exploit a new market or emerging trend and have very little passion for their product. With neither first hand experience of the market or empathy for their customers they rely purely third party research and cloning an existing business model. They see other startups flocking to a burgeoning market and try to grab their own piece of the pie. What was initially a “blue ocean” soon turns into a “shark infested waters” consisting of nearly indistinguishable products. Their only differentiators beings slightly different bootstrap themes or an extra useless feature.
However, if you build your startup around your passions and what interests you then you will have a much better chance of finding a niche and owning a market. By scratching your own itch and tackling problems you’ve experienced you have the advantage of using your insight to more quickly develop a winning business strategy. Since you are your own target audience you are more likely to know people with similar issues or at least know how to get it touch with them.
What are the main challenges to building a successful startup?
- Having a genuinely good idea (i.e. building something customers love)
- Being able to execute on that idea (i.e. having the skills and resources to make the idea reality)
- Keeping that idea alive (i.e. developing a sustainable business model)
So how can you overcome these challenges in a shorter amount of time and wasting as little money as possible? Here are my 5 simple steps to get you going:
Step 1 — Shape your vision
Think about things that anger you in the world. Ideally focus on things that affect you; that you’re passionate about; and would love to change. Create a vision in your head of what the world would look like if these things WERE fixed. Articulate this vision as clearly as possible, share it with others and use their feedback to make it even clearer. Then turn it into a story that inspires and excites people. You want to have a vision and story that even your grandmother will understand (as well as the rest of her bridge club).
Step 2 — Define your purpose
Why does your startup exist? How will it help to achieve your vision?What is its mission? Is the purpose of your startup to create joy or remove pain? Is it a vitamin or a painkiller?
Vitamins (joy creators) feed a previously untapped need or create a new behaviour/experience. In my opinion Facebook is a vitamin. It didn’t tackle a specific problem but it did elicit a new type of interaction between people.
A painkiller on the other hand addresses a very specific, existing problem. Its purpose is well defined and it is easier to measure its value. Basecamp is a painkiller. It tackles the problem of managing projects with distributed teams.
I believe painkillers are a lot less risky to build than vitamins. The issues they tackle are more tangible and easier to understand. If speed is of the essence then trying to find painkillers is a safer bet.
Once you’ve decided that you’re a painkiller then you’ll need to create a prioritised list of all the problems to tackle. Pick the top three, making sure that they’re high value problems (i.e. the ones that people would pay to have solved). The purpose of your startup is to tackle these.
Step 3 — Take stock of your resources
What skills do you possess? How could you use these skills to fulfil your startup’s purpose? Do you know people with skills that could help you?
If you have all the skills you need to get started then great. You can move quickly. However, if you have to start employing people; make strategic partnerships; or engage with a supplier, then having defined your vision and purpose will be essential if you want to avoid wasting time and money. Your vision and purpose will help these people understand what you’re trying to achieve much better than any feature list or project brief.
Having taken stock of your resources you can now assess whether the problems you identified in the previous step can be tackled by your team. If they can’t you may have to got back to Step 2 and do some refinement around your purpose.
Step 4 — Build your community
As mentioned above if you’re creating something you’re passionate about, identifying your target market should be easy. They’re essentially people like you and so finding early adopters should be relatively quick. Furthermore, if your vision is inspirational enough you can turn these early adopters into evangelists. For early stage startups it’s hard to know whether you’re on the right track and so you want avoid expensive marketing campaigns at the beginning. Your early evangelists will be do this marketing for you at no cost. They will believe so strongly in your vision that they’ll be willing to spread the word. This is where having an engaging story will help, as it will mean the word will spread even faster.
This is may all sound a bit cult-like, but the principles aren’t far off. Make your mission inspirational enough and you’ll have believers and followers appearing from all directions.
Step 5 — Stay focused
Throughout the early stages of your startup you’ll get conflicting advice from many different sources. While most people will have the best intentions their opinions will be biased by their own experiences and their own perception of what you’re doing. Some advice will be good but a lot will be distracting. Having a clearly defined vision will stop you getting sidetracked and led off in an unproductive tangent. Since you’re working in an area that you’re passionate about you will always be the best person to judge on the relevance of any advice. You won’t be tempted by short term gains as you will be focused on fulfilling your purpose and achieving your vision. Believe in your gut!
So getting back to the title of this blog post: by creating an inspirational shareable vision you’re more likely to attract fanatical customers (i.e. create a product people love). And by using the skills and resources at your disposal you will be able to build something in a much shorter time with no need for funding (i.e. quicker and for less money).
