Don’t read the TechCrunch.
Don’t obsess with the latest story on the HackerNews.
Don’t worry about growth hacking.
Don’t waste your time ‘measuring the opportunity size’ for your next VC meeting.
Don’t obsess with the competition.
Just build a fucking awesome product.
Build something for yourself. That is the only way you can tell if you have done the right thing. Listen to your customers and be your own customer. Obsess with product. Make it perfect. Don’t compromise on quality. You know if you have when you are using it every day.
VCs want you to tell them about the customer acquisition routes, market size, pricing strategy, distribution channels, competitive landscape, funding roadmap, growth strategy and a lot more.
They ask detailed questions that no one knows the answer to that early in the business. They never ask you, how you’re going to make your product perfect? No one knows the answer to that either. But they just don’t ask that.
The problem is, when a company like WhatsApp is acquired for $19B the first things VCs do is to check their email boxes to see if they said no to WhatsApp before. What they don’t do is to ask is how did WhatsApp grow to be so big to be so valuable to someone like Facebook? And if they do ask or answer that question, it’s all retrospective analysis. Hindsight.
The reality is that no one knows why Candy Crush is so popular? No one knows how Angry Birds got to be so big?
No
one knows this including the companies behind them. If they did, they
would have reproduced the success. Where is OMGPop? Do you know any
other games from King, the makers of Candy Crush? Have you seen anything
else making money for Rovio apart from Angry Birds merchandise?
But all you hear is “How are you going to be the next King, Rovio, Facebook or WhatsApp?” when neither side of the conversation knows how they got to be what they are. Your ansswer might as well be “I’m going to use black magic. I know an old witch”.
You can waste your limited resources in trying to answer those questions. The reality is that you might have to do that. If you don’ have money to carry on and need an investment, then you will have to try and answer questions like that. Leave the old witch out of it and try your best, but remember: don’t confuse the answers to those questions with anything real. Don’t believe for a second they mean anything when you don’t have a great product. Don’t lose your focus on your product.
The only thing that matters, the only thing that is guaranteed to help with making a business is a laser-sharp focus on product. You might not build a WhatsApp by only focusing on product, but no one knows any other way.