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independence6 unconnected · 1 more author in those circles
applies to

b2b, no audience needed

confidence

high

evidence

9 claims · 8 articles · 4 receipts

window

2017-04-17 → 2024-03-27

6 builders who never spoke to each other

Book the buyer calls before you write any code

Set a countable target for conversations with real buyers and hold it before development starts. Founders who skipped this step name it as the thing they would change, and those who did it usually found the real product sitting somewhere adjacent to their first idea.

The method

  1. 01

    Talk to buyers before building. Months of development against an unverified problem is the expensive way to learn that few people want it.

  2. 02

    Before writing code, go to your own network or online and ask likely buyers directly whether they would pay for the thing.

  3. 03

    Book conversations with a few dozen prospective buyers before you commit to an idea.

  4. 04

    Spend a few months asking peers what they use for the job. A consistent answer of nothing good, plus a request to be told if you find something, is the demand signal.

  5. 05

    Interview the whole workflow, not just your idea. Leadsie asked agencies how they find clients and what happens at onboarding, and the access handover pain came up in every second conversation, which became the real product.

What it returned

  • 30

    The founders interviewed had each reached a median count of 30 prospects before going all in.

  • The founder shut WePlate down after eight months and names starting with customer conversations rather than the product as the thing he would change.

  • Nine months of building produced software nobody used, and the founder's stated fix is to gather feedback before building anything.

  • Barry McCardel approached Hex first as a buyer, spent months asking around, and found nobody had a good answer, though everyone wanted to hear it if he did.

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in sales

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the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.