5 Product Building Principles
While this book is about specific startup techniques and methods, there are some general principles that you should follow when building new products.
These principles are often more important than specific methods. Even if you ignore and decide to not apply any method and technique from this book these principles will prove invaluable in your product building journey.
1. Build/Launch in hours, days, and weeks, not months
The most important constraint on a product-building journey is the time constraint. Set clear deadlines/timelines to launch quickly. When in doubt focus on doing over learning and don't aim for perfection.
You will recognize great entrepreneurs by their crazy timelines and the attempt to build very fast. Just think about Elon or Zuckerberg - moving fast is in their DNA.
If you observe average founders they do the exact opposite and they tend to delay launching and overcomplicate products. This creates a slow feedback cycle, spending much more money than needed, unnecessary product complexity and many other problems.
2. Observe and talk to customers/users
Actual user behaviors and feedback are the most valuable assets of any entrepreneur and product builder. Collect, use, and respect this data as a continuous source of truth.
We will dig deeper into specific ways to do this, but collecting user feedback and data every week is an important practice of great product builders.
This is a good place to apply the rule of 100. If you haven't talked to 100 customers that are not your friends you have no idea who your customer is.
Talking to customers is the natural mechanism to validate every hypothesis about your company and business.
3. Solve specific problems
The best products have started by solving very specific customer problems and jobs to be done in niche markets.
Start by solving a significant problem for a single user/persona in a better and magical way.
Don't worry about how you're going to get to 1,000,000 customers. Focus on how you will create a magical experience for 1 person, then for 10, then for 100. -- Alexis Ohanian, Founder of Reddit
Don't overcomplicate your product by solving all kinds of minor problems and jobs to be done. There are painkillers and vitamins -- focus on the painkiller features in your products.
4. Iterate hundreds of times to success
Don't forget that very few products have succeeded in version #1. Usually it takes dozens and hundreds of iterations to hit product-market fit. This is important to remember.
We have seen founders expect too much from an MVP or version 1 of a product. This is natural human behavior but we know from experience that 99% of products require a lot of iteration, even if you have the top 1% team working with you.
5. Sell and market your products (even before building)
Most people in the product-building universe are focused on building over selling. This is a huge mistake.
With cloud and AI tools it's much easier to build than ever, but reaching actual customers and converting them is becoming a much bigger challenge with increased competition.
Focus as much (or more) on marketing/sales/partnerships than you do on product building. It will prove very valuable.
The first step to think as a salesman is to sell before building as a form of validation. Ask for money even before building your product, as described in the famous Mom's Test book.