Technology vs Products

How technology kills startups

We all suffer from a prevailing mindset which often defines our destiny.

Engineers, financiers, sales people, lawyers, academics all have a core thought process through which they evaluate and engage the world. If you listen well enough you can hear it when they talk. The result is often miscommunication all the way from families to startups to government.

In most cases the ‘loudest’ voice imposes it’s worldview on the rest. This is what is meant by an ‘engineering’ or ‘sales’ led company. In my Silicon Valley career I have been in both environments. The most influential voice, typically the founders, imposes a very definitive culture on a company which will then ultimately, for better or worse, define the company’s destiny.

Engineering cultures tend to lean heavily towards the novelty of technology. Many of the startups I advise in our Systematic Entrepreneurship accelerator at ImpactaAfrica.network have this problem in spades. Because engineers like building things more than they enjoy talking to people/selling technical founders will default to their coding comfort zones. The result is often a technology masquerading as a product pushed into a market that doesn’t really know what to do with it.

For startups, this begins the slow, frustrating, entirely avoidable death spiral.

Products solve problems. Understanding the true nature of a problem requires deep market research which means multiple conversations with prospective customers ranging from articulating specific use cases, measuring the quantifiable value proposition, uncovering buyer personas, to knowing the buyers decision process etc.

Building tech is an intoxicating rabbit hole. Building tech is not the same thing as building a startup. After witnessing so much pain from entrepreneurs struggling to find paying customers after investing precious time and money building tech we decided to offer Systematic Entrepreneurship as a two day open course for entrepreneurs and startups in Nairobi.

The goal is to ensure folks avoid repeating painful, entirely avoidable and unnecessary mistakes in getting their ideas to market.