- People get excited about an idea and
then build the product, and then find out,
six months later, that nobody else was excited.
(exciting fast music)
How to go from zero to selling your first product.
This video is the most important video
that you're gonna wanna watch.
If you've ever thought of starting a software company,
maybe you have one, maybe you've gone to the market,
your customers aren't buying.
Maybe you're struggling at finding your best idea to pursue,
maybe you have built something way too complicated.
I'm gonna share with you, in this video, the simple
framework on how I built companies over the years.
You know, I've done 1,300 Clarity calls,
talking one on one with entrepreneurs
about their top challenges.
Here's the deal, 1/3 of those calls were entrepreneurs
that did this framework backwards.
They built the product, six months, 10's of thousands
dollars invested, they put it in front of a customer,
and their customer said that's cool,
but it doesn't meet my needs, or that's really neat,
but I don't know if I understand how to use it,
it's too complicated.
They built something for somebody that didn't exist.
They thought that there was a pain in the market,
that was just a vitamin,
and that's what I wanna share with you guys in this video.
Number one is how do you come up with the best idea?
Because you might have no idea, which is totally cool,
a lot of entrepreneurs run into that,
or you have a number of ideas and
you can't figure out the right one to do.
Well, here's a quick three P framework
for thinking this through.
Number one is you need to know that you have the problem.
I would never start a company if I didn't have
the problem myself, because at the end of the day,
you need to understand the mindset of the customer,
and where they're struggling with, and here's the reality,
if it doesn't work out,
at least you'll be a customer for the product.
So, number one, you have the problem.
Two is the pain, make sure it's not a vitamin,
make sure it's a pain killer, make sure it's a must have,
not a nice to have. So that's
the distinction of a great idea.
Is it something people really, really, really want,
and are gonna beat down a path to your door,
or is it just kind of something, maybe they
would like it to make their life better,
which are usually, typically hard to monetize
and make money from.
The third area is passion, at the end of the day,
if you're not passionate about your idea,
then you gotta make sure you find one that you are,
because the problem is what's gonna get you excited,
not the solution.
Finding a customer that you would love to serve,
and being passionate about that, that's key.
So that's the first part of the strategy,
is make sure that you focus on the right idea.
Number two is get feedback from the right customers.
So, when you have an idea, most of you get excited,
you talk to your friends, they all go,
"That would be awesome, yes totally,
"you should pursue that."
What I do, that's totally different, is I find
customers that use my competitors product.
So, if you wanna build innovation, that's cool,
but you're probably in a market, and you can find customers
that currently pay for that solution, and ask them about
your specific approach to solving that problem.
Because those people actually have put their money
where their mouth is. Whereas if you just go to a general
market, and you ask people for their advice on your idea,
they’re gonna be kind.
I'm from Canada, Canadians are super polite,
they will never tell you that your idea's a bad idea.
Do you realize that?
Do you know how much risk you incur by asking people,
"Hey, what do you think of my idea?"
No, you wanna talk to customers that have the problem,
and get their advice. That is the second one,
getting feedback from paying customers.
Third, is prototyping
and not building a product.
The problem I have with the word MVP, or minimum
viable product, is it's got the word product in there.
What I would suggest is build a clickable prototype,
something that you can sit down and design three core
features of the idea, not the future vision.
Look, in five years, the truth is, the world's gonna change,
innovation's gonna take hold, you don't know what
that's gonna look like.
Just sit down and say, "Okay, what could we build
"in a six week product sprint?
"What are the three core features that'll
"deliver value for our customers?"
And you sit down and you build a prototype,
you can use tools like Balsamiq, or UXPin,
or even InVision, but you wanna build a clickable prototype.
I've seen people use Keynote and Powerpoint,
so super simple, build the prototype.
Then, here's the key, you wanna run a pilot program.
You go back to those customers that you've talked to,
you go back to people that you think are interested,
and you get them to pre-buy the product.
People ask, "Well, what should I charge?"
My suggestion is 50% off of the first year cost,
that you're eventually, when you launch it.
And here's the deal, if you put that clickable prototype
in front of the customer, you've never nailed their
pain point in the market, you're excited and passionate
about the problem, and it's something that
you wanna solve yourself, they're gonna resonate with that,
and they can join that pilot program.
You only have a limited amount of seats,
because really, all you're looking for is feedback
as you co create it with them.
You do that two cycles, and eventually,
you want your product public.
That is the framework from going to zero
to selling your first product, hope that served you.
Really excited to share that with you,
because it's one of the top questions,
the top frustration, the problem that I have
to address every time I talk to a new entrepreneur,
that's already out there doing it.
So excited for you, excited for your future,
excited for you to sell the first version of your product.
Pilots all the way, as per usual,
I wanna challenge you to live a bigger life,
and a bigger business, and I'll see you next Monday.
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I'm excited to have you here,
and I'll see you next week.