Dave Sloan recently wrote a great article on doing market validation for your startup. It’s a worthwhile read, and I definitely recommend it for anything working on their own startup idea. It’s generally a pretty good idea to understand market demand and needs before you start building out a product. It’s way easier to fail when your investment is small, than when it’s 2 years of your life.
But, maybe you should build it anyway.
But why would you, if you don’t have market validation? If you don’t know there are customers and you don’t know what they want, why bother building anything at all? Because if you’re building something to solve your own problems, you’ve already got a customer (you) and you already know what they want.
Maybe a startup isn’t the right path for your project. Maybe it’s an eventuality, maybe it’s a rush. Maybe it’s not meant to be. That’s all up to you to determine. But if you redefine your ideas of success and what could be, you’ll have a more enjoyable experience into making your idea a reality.
That’s what I did when I built out WillYou DidYou. I don’t know if there’s market demand — i’m still working on establishing that. But if I find there really isn’t, should it fail to gain traction, I’ve still built something for me, that solves problems I’ve had for my entire life, that I can use for the rest of my life; so already I’ve won. And honestly, that’s not nothing, that’s a lot. And with the cost of hosting under $10, It’s something I can keep running without much effort.
Another important reason that maybe you should build it anyway, is the experience you’ll get from it. I know I’ve started my fair share of projects that never got finished, as I’m sure many of you have. But I’ve also learned a lot from those projects. In fact, I learned the most from those projects. That’s how I picked up CSS flexbox, caching, and so much of my comfort with design.
Finally, I think the most important reason that maybe you should build it anyway, is because it makes you see yourself in a different light. It challenges your vision of you and of reality. After you’ve built something, you have a different sense of whats possible. You created something besides yourself that can serve a purpose. One that potentially other people could use or learn from, which also brings with a sense of satisfaction in your work.
I’ve still built something for me, that solves problems I’ve had for my entire life, that I can use for the rest of my life.
Obviously, don’t do anything foolish or haphazardly. Spend your time wisely, in ways that make the most sense for you and what you want. But even if you build something and nobody else uses it, you’re still able to come out on top in the end.
