It Doesn’t Matter If The Product Exists

You might spend years building a product only to see your startup die because you can’t grow or monetize it. Here’s an example how to avoid that fate.

I often advise founders with consumer or prosumer ideas to de-risk the growth channel first. My advice is almost always ignored.

One reason is that there aren’t compelling examples of how to do this. When I’m asked, I mostly point at Tim Ferriss’ example of two entrepreneurs selling French sailor shirts in the 4-Hour Workweek. But that example doesn’t feel right because most entrepreneurs aren’t trying to start a niche e-commerce play.

This week I found a better example. I came across this promoted tweet in my feed:

A well-targeted promoted tweet.

The styling of “personal CRM” with gothic letters is cute, but don’t let that distract you from what’s happening here: This founder is building a prosumer product. He found a way to target me on Twitter, likely by using follower targeting or interest targeting. People like myself who are into entrepreneurship or investing are easy to target, and are likely to be interested in a personal CRM product.

Clicking on the tweet leads me to this flow:

clay.earth waitlist signup flow

Breaking it down a bit:

1. Clicking on the Twitter ad leads me to a well-written content marketing piece about the importance of a personal CRM product. It’s not purely promotional — it’s a history view of famous entrepreneur’s index card CRMs.
2. Primed from reading the content marketing piece, the bottom of the article leads me to a form where I can sign up, along with the social proof that others already have — over 2000 people are in front of me already in the line! I better get in line too.
3. Having volunteered my email address, I’m now given the satisfaction of a number in line. At the bottom of the page, there’s an option to “skip the line”.
4. Clicking on that link, I’m taken to a page where I can pay $14.99 to “skip the line,” which ensures that I’d be in the “first round of invites.” I will only be charged when they launch.

That very last sentence is what made me realize a crucial point. There’s likely no product yet. This flow is an MVP to de-risk their user acquisition. Here’s a startup that has taken the Lean Startup process to its logical extreme. They are testing user acquisition first. Only if that works will they build the full product.

I have no idea if the product actually exists, and it doesn’t even matter.

I know what you’re thinking. Taken to its most extreme conclusion, this approach will just lead us to a world of vaporware marketing pages. I wouldn’t like that world either. But for now, I’m more concerned about the thousands of startups that will die because they built the better mousetrap, and found no way to sell it.

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I’m not affiliated with clay.earth, the example startup in this post.