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Do You Start a Business With an Audience, Product, or Problem?

MitchC

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I've skimmed this thread and from what I can tell I haven't seen starting with a market mentioned.

I also can't believe people are saying you need to build an audience before you build a business, thats just insane to me. That just sounds like the biggest action faking waste of time ever.

1. You start with a passionate starving market that spends money. A market you can reach.
2. Then you create a product for them. A good product. Something they give a F*ck about the quality of when they're buying it.
3. And then you reach that market, probably by paying.
4. Along the way you'll build an audience and list.

Some people have audiences so it makes sense to use that as their market but if you don't have an audience then I would consider building one first action faking.

I was also going to post this in the social media thread but I'll post it here instead:

You shouldn't be trying to build audiences by grinding organically, posting all the time, trying to generate massive amounts of content.

It was mentioned that the organic reach is terrible and the companies just want you to pay.

So what should you do? You should just be paying to reach people.

That's the game these companies want you to play so play it. If someones built an audience in your niche then pay them to reach that as well.

TikTok and Youtube are 2 places you could still get organic reach, so if you really wanted it that's where I would start.
 
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MTF

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You shouldn't be trying to build audiences by grinding organically, posting all the time, trying to generate massive amounts of content.

It was mentioned that the organic reach is terrible and the companies just want you to pay.

So what should you do? You should just be paying to reach people.

That's the game these companies want you to play so play it. If someones built an audience in your niche then pay them to reach that as well.

TikTok and Youtube are 2 places you could still get organic reach, so if you really wanted it that's where I would start.

I agree with that.

You either pay with time or with money.
 

Andy Black

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There's no point in launching a business if you don't know how to easily acquire potential customers.
Hence the advice to “fail fast”.

Got a theory you can help people with XYZ and enough will pay? What’s the quickest and cheapest way you can prove or disprove that theory?


I like to think of a market as people already paying to solve what you can solve.

And we don’t just need a market, we also need a route to market (aka a marketing channel).

I also like to think of sales as a screening process, and that sales happens when we get the right offer in front of the right person at the right time.

From “Ready, Fire, Aim” … if we’re under $1m/year then focus on one avatar, one channel, one product. I take that with a pinch of salt, but it’s a good reminder to focus on what’s working.
 

MitchC

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Andy Black

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I also can't believe people are saying you need to build an audience before you build a business, thats just insane to me. That just sounds like the biggest action faking waste of time ever.
Exactly. Building an audience first (and using it to ensure you build products that audience wants) is a legit route, but we don’t *need* to build an audience first. Lots of ways to skin a cat.
 

MitchC

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Exactly. Building an audience first (and using it to ensure you build products that audience wants) is a legit route, but we don’t *need* to build an audience first. Lots of ways to skin a cat.
So I guess to directly answer the question in the thread I would start with the product because I can reach and build an audience profitably while selling that product.

If you build the audience first you don't have income coming in while doing so, so building it is going to be much more time consuming because you can't pay for content and pay to reach them as it's not generating any income.
 

McAdam

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Marketing is my biggest weakness in business, too. Which is why I now start by identifying distribution channels first. Then, if there are sufficient EASY places to reach your target market, I figure out how the business may unfold over the years.
...
There's no point in launching a business if you don't know how to easily acquire potential customers.

Hence the advice to “fail fast”.

Got a theory you can help people with XYZ and enough will pay? What’s the quickest and cheapest way you can prove or disprove that theory?
...
And we don’t just need a market, we also need a route to market (aka a marketing channel).
Agree with both of you

From my perspective: Reading through the forum and other places, many people miss the marketing step and efforts needed to judge if the project deserves more attention or if it's time to move on (as I used to).
Failure is judged solely on adoption regardless of marketing efforts (and no, $1k on blanket google ads does not equal marketing - ill be reaching out at some point @Andy Black to consult)!

The "Fail Fast" ideology is sound, but when applying it people forget about the equation for marketing.
Challenges I have seen where the idea is sound but marketing is lacking:
- What is it that you actually do? (talking too much about the problems or the solution)
- Why should I use you? (Unable to convey the value of the offer)
- What does this have to do with me? (Unable to reach the desired audience)
- What are you talking about? (Technical Jargon - or written from the creators perspective)
- How are you going to change my life? (What's the value proposition here? why should I give you my money?)

I guess adding more focus on the marketing and testing side of things is the best way to go.
You need to ensure you're actually reaching your audience and gathering the feedback (good and bad). Only then can you judge success or fail. So it should be "Fail Thoroughly but Fast"

----

Ive seen the shittest ideas that could be rebuilt in a day reach multi million valuations - because they answered all this questions correctly (Slack Karma bot for example).
But a better alternative comes and goes because they failed in the marketing - despite it being a better product with more value and for less cost.
 
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McAdam

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....

You could have an amazing service that transforms the lives of users. People really need it and you could get 1 million customers within a few months;
BUT, if you dont know how or where to market it, you may launch and mark it as a fail within a couple of months.

...

Ok, @MJ DeMarco covered exactly this in chapter 40 of Unscripted .
Exactly my thoughts and conclusions were covered - feels a bit like I was preaching to the choir here, sorry about that!
 

MJ DeMarco

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Ok, @MJ DeMarco covered exactly this in chapter 40 of Unscripted .
Exactly my thoughts and conclusions were covered - feels a bit like I was preaching to the choir here, sorry about that!
Anyone have some thoughts, experiences or feedback on the above?

Ha, I was just going to comment on it ... in TGRRE , I call this process Triangulated Value Strategy. In Unscripted , I didn't have a formal name, the process is just outlined.

Thread marked NOTABLE.
 

McAdam

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Ha, I was just going to comment on it ... in TGRRE , I call this process Triangulated Value Strategy. In Unscripted , I didn't have a formal name, the process is just outlined.

Thread marked NOTABLE.

Epic!

I wish I had capacity to read faster, but taking the time between reading sessions to absorb and reflect on the knowledge has proven to be the best way forwards for me!

Glad to see my mind wasn't playing tricks and "Action Faking" itself :D
 
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Peter Kay

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Finally, someone going against the current gold rush / flavour of the month.

I'm tired of hearing about audience and community growth being the only or best way to build a business. There’s so many people focused on building Facebook groups as if it’s the end goal, instead of helping people and figuring out how to get paid.

@MJ DeMarco created products that people loved and shared, and *that* is what made sales and created his audience.

Note that this is an Indie Hackers email so it’s directed to software developers creating SaaS products.

(Shame this email doesn't have a version on a website, otherwise I'd be able to link to it.)

@MTF ... thought you might be interested in this in particular.

View attachment 41836

It reminds me of these threads:

EDIT: Found the page with the full newsletter:
Thank you @Andy Black great insight.
 

Vasudev Soni

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A rant related to the previous post...

1. I actually like to visit Indie Hackers and check what's going on there because many people there spend a lot of time building stuff. Maybe a lot of it never grows beyond 4-5 figures but at least they're shipping stuff and sooner or later something will scale. Compare it to many wantrepreneurs who keep looking for that perfect business idea for years. The reason why I've been reading more stuff on IH recently is precisely to avoid becoming that wantrepreneur. I realized I'm too obsessed about finding that perfect new business rather than building something and seeing how it goes. Maybe it goes nowhere but each new attempt is a new ACTIVE learning experience.

2. So many startups these days revolve around the startup/business/tech world. It's becoming sort of like money making gurus teaching others how to teach others how to make money online, only now you have tools, directories, SaaS, and other stuff like that addressing people wanting to make money selling these tools to others wanting to sell these tools to others. Lol that's confusing but that's how I see it: a closed industry with most people blindly creating products for other people EXACTLY like them instead of finding a fresh, underserved audience.

I see the same on Twitter. Most business ideas in these sexy Twitter threads from "money Twitter experts" rehash the same services/products for the same business/startup/tech crowd.

Where's solving the problems of, say, martial arts gyms instead of becoming another digital marketing agency? Where's selling products for pet owners instead of yet another website flipping business? Where's coaching skills like woodworking instead of coaching how to make money, pursue your passion, or other nebulous coaching business?

Don't get me wrong. I like the money-related niches but I feel like this is so overplayed now. There REALLY are other audiences than your typical startup/business/owner/investor/VC/tech engineer, etc.
That’s true. Serving an underserved audience is the best way to build a business and get rich.
But the problem is, people sometimes don’t even know what problem they are facing.
Finding that critical problem is the most time taking step and after you discover it, it can help you build a great business.
 

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