No 2 businesses are alike, no 2 industries are alike, no 2 consumer profiles are alike. There is no silver bullet to solving this problem. One thing I have noticed is you really need to understand the buyer deeply - this is most easy if you yourself want this product, but failing that, studying your buyer as much as possible. When you really get into the head of the buyer you may figure out a channel to sell that is un-obvious.
Marketing is an art - truth be told, all of business is an art, which is why expertise is valued so highly. The moment something becomes commoditized is the moment you no longer need experts and the solutions are widespread.
If you are bootstrapping, I think it's easiest to actually have a bare-minimum product first. This is a risk - you need to put the time and effort into building something to sell. If you yourself are not an engineer, then it becomes even harder.
If you aren't going to bootstrap, then you need to have connections. At this point in my career if I chose to start a new company in the area where I am well-known and successful, raising a few million dollars for a seed round would be easy. But this is after more than a decade of building contacts, reputation, and so on - if I was just starting out, that would be impossible.
Starting a new, successful business is a puzzle. If it was easy, it wouldn't be rewarding. Good luck!
very nicely put. at different stages of the poker tournament (time), chips (funds), cards (strategy), your behavior and options drastically differ.
and I think back to your point about knowing the buyer being critical. there is also a huge barrier/cost to acquiring that information in some spaces, and often you can get false signals from your potential buyers.
As engineers than the best products we create is the one we solve for ourselves. My strength is not in cold calling/reaching out to ppl on linkedin/customer development interviews. It's intuition.
but does it affect the outcome, does having a stronger intuition and your discipline to follow it result in a successful outcome compared to when you don't? I think the question is then what comes first, luck or intuition?
Another option if you are the technical talent is to find someone you trust to partner with on the business side. I highly recommend partnering with someone you have worked with before to ensure you can get along with them, but failing that, someone with reputation - they have had true success in the past and have people who can vouch for them.
Marketing is an art - truth be told, all of business is an art, which is why expertise is valued so highly. The moment something becomes commoditized is the moment you no longer need experts and the solutions are widespread.
If you are bootstrapping, I think it's easiest to actually have a bare-minimum product first. This is a risk - you need to put the time and effort into building something to sell. If you yourself are not an engineer, then it becomes even harder.
If you aren't going to bootstrap, then you need to have connections. At this point in my career if I chose to start a new company in the area where I am well-known and successful, raising a few million dollars for a seed round would be easy. But this is after more than a decade of building contacts, reputation, and so on - if I was just starting out, that would be impossible.
Starting a new, successful business is a puzzle. If it was easy, it wouldn't be rewarding. Good luck!