#54 | Learning in an airport
I am sitting in an airport with a mint tea. Tomorrow I'll be hanging out with gorillas in Rwanda. Fun! Anyway, as I sit here, I reflect on how we're still (still!) pre-product/market fit. If you are a founder out there who is pre-pmf, here are some fun things I've learned in the last few months which have been working for me and might work for you, too.
Enjoy getting to the truth. There is nothing (nothing!) worse than not knowing what the truth is. When I started, I thought there was nothing worse than failure. It turns out there is. Moderate success without getting to the bottom of what's going on is worse. The search for the truth has recently become a lot more fun. The truth is hidden deep in conversations, usage and revenue stats (eek). Each day, another clue arises, indicating what people want. Our most prominent danger is to ignore that and continue to build shit that people don't want (or won't use but do want). A bit like running an ultra-marathon, this is pure endurance that can be either loved or loathed. You get to choose which.
Do 10x more. I went to a good friend of mine about six months ago with some issues I was having. I felt stretched with the workload. After I moaned for a bit, he said, 'what if you can do 10x more; just try to do 10x more'. While the advice sounds skinny, it does have an anxiety-evaporating effect on me. I sit at my desk, stretched and stressed, over-caffeinated and under-slept, and think: 'okay, how can I do 10x more?!' — invariably, I end up achieving more than I expect.
Keep emailing. Once I would stop emailing people after the second or third attempt. Now, as a rule, I don't stop emailing. Yes, the emails get further apart, or if we have good news, there may be a spray of links to articles. But don't stop because people do eventually email back as if it was your first approach. Nobody minds being pestered and asked for help—the worst they will do is ignore you.
Launch everything too early. There are many things that I'm not happy with our product. A lot of the design is off, but it does the job of determining whether people will want and use it. Critically, No enterprise customer cares about how a product looks. The Windows 95 style workflows and the documents they crawl through every day make any product that even a lousy designer can spit look like the iPhone 12 vs their old Nokia. Many unicorns are built by replacing the following non-exciting workflow: an excel sheet sent by email with people in copy. Look for those opportunities, and don't overthink the design.
Talk about the big picture a lot. People love hearing the glorious vision. No one remembers the tiny details, but the story, mission, and landscape you paint around you are essential to opening doors. Even if this has only a tangential link to the product in hand, think bigger thoughts, and set the sights higher.
Start with a small market. I've written about starting niche here. Even if the TAM is less than $1million, I think it's a good sign (especially for those who are bootstrapping.
Flight taking off! Must go.
Live well,
H