Startups create wealth by building things society wants but doesn’t yet know how to get. The wealth created can be considered:
Wealth = (No. of Users) x (How Much You Improve Their Lives)
As a founder, you have more control over how much you improve users’ lives than over how many users you can reach. The more you improve lives, the more users will come.
The hardest part of a startup is deciding what to build to improve users’ lives. But how do you figure that out? The clearest signal is when someone pays for your product or service. Importantly, figuring out what to build isn’t a one time decision. It’s a continuous process. As you build and listen to your users, new ideas will naturally emerge.
Steve Jobs famously said, “customers don’t know what they want”. Users won’t tell you what to build, but they’ll show you the problems to solve. Focus on understanding why users want something as this reveals the root problem, not just the symptoms.
Seek feedback from real users with genuine needs. Be cautious of friends and family, they mean well but often offer biased encouragement over genuine feedback.
This focus on understanding users underpins much of the conventional advice given to startups. Launching early is about getting real feedback as soon as possible. Exceptional customer service keeps you close to your users. And iterating over time is simply the natural outcome of listening to and acting on that feedback.