What I realized was all our ideas sounded great, but they were not connected to a user pain. For us, writing code, even though it’s not the most efficient use of time, helped us explore ideas best. It forced us to talk to people and build a mental model of the real world.”
@lennysan
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Validate Your Tech Ideas Early With Potential Users
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Key: Start with a space you're excited about—that's big and underserved—and ideate. But, as soon as you have a concept you're excited about, quickly talk to potential users. @zoink narrowed his focus to two areas he saw potential in (drones and WebGL) and then started digging:
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Notion founders pivoted no-code builder into focused product
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@ivanhzhao and @akothari at @NotionHQ started with the general idea of a no-code app builder and eventually (four years later!) noticed pull for a specific set of features—and leaned fully into that.
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Finding Product Market Fit Through Customer Pain Points
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Eventually, she zeroed in on two spaces that felt ripe for opportunity, that she was excited about (security and collaboration), and kept talking to customers to find the biggest source of *pain* and *pull*:
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Startup Validation: Talk to Users, Not Just Brainstorm
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@borisjabes
, the co-founder of @Census
, shared a similar learning: "Looking back, sitting in a room and trying to come up with a great startup is really bad. We played that exercise for a month, and it’s just bad because we should have been talking to people who had problems." -
Whiteboard Ideas vs Real-World AI Startup Viability
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As @christinacaci put it (on her path to building @TrustVanta
): "At the whiteboard stage, it makes so much sense. And in reality, zero sense. We recognized that if you can do it on a whiteboard, someone has probably done it. There’s no $20 bills on the sidewalk." -
Brainstorming Right Way Drives Best B2B Startup Ideas
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One of my biggest surprises from researching the original stories of the best B2B startups is how many of their startup ideas emerged from doing something that's generally discouraged: sitting around and whiteboarding. But, there’s a wrong way and a right way…
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Support Team Reporting Structure Product Leadership
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Why you may want to have your support team report into product
— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) 8 août 2023
From @geoffintech, VP Product @tryramp pic.twitter.com/Fxb5xzWLTNWhy you may want to have your support team report into product From @geoffintech
, VP Product @tryramp -
Optimize for Interestingness in Your Work
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@paulg in a recent essay: “It’s essential to work on something you’re deeply interested in. Interest will drive you to work harder than mere diligence ever could. When in doubt, optimize for interestingness.” Source: http://
paulgraham.com/greatwork.html
#f1n
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You Need Passion to Solve Long-Term Problems
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3. You’re excited about solving this problem Finally, the problem needs to be something you are willing to spend many years of your life solving. This advice from @zoink
, co-founder of Figma, captures the sentiment perfectly: