marketing, customer-development, minimum-viable-productI want to start a product company and getting the first paying customer is a huge challenge. Selling a prototype, or even better, getting paid for developing the first prototype would offer a great advantage to my start-up.
What are the steps I should be taking to get the first paying customer as fast as possible?
For one idea we had (me and a couple of friends), we felt the urge to start developing the idea as soon as possible. We halted this process and instead started to search if our idea was viable, if someone would be willing to pay for it. 2 months later we got an interested customer who demands the solution before this December, and now we’re building it knowing that we already have a potential customer.
In our startup we sell products, but this applies to services as well: you need to get well-known before your product actually hits the market. Start with a blog and a landing page that explains the product/idea briefly, and offers the possibility for the user to sign up to your “interested list” with its e-mail address. As soon as you get at least 20 applicants, you know your idea is being noticed. Fasten the development of an MVP (launch early the essential, update always adding value based on feedback). You’re mostly likely to start small, but the potential of growth will be limited only by how well you solve the problem and how well you advertise it.
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