What Furnishing an Empty Apartment Teaches Us About Feature Requests
I’ve had the privilege for two years of being part of an AlphaLab alumni panel that takes questions from the newly selected class. One of the questions I hear over and over again is about product features. First-time entrepreneurs and “I can build basically anything” hackers both struggle with identifying and prioritizing features in order to deliver something substantial within the small pocket of time between now and Demo Day. The answer has always been the same: Listen to your users. But entrepreneurs often cite Henry Ford as saying, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
Well, let’s come back to Earth and realize that we’re building online software and not the future of transportation. Most of us have a practical problem we are trying to solve, full of just enough innovation to potentially be a success (a lucky few are creating something truly amazing). Innovation does come from individual thinking (the “aha” moment), but listening to customers is the only way you can understand what they need in the first place. We’ll never know, but perhaps if Ford never heard someone complain about the inefficiency of buying horses, watching them get old and slow, and then dying, we’d be trotting to the grocery store today.
While I’ve written about this subject in the past, the focus of that article was more on prioritizing features, and not how to use customer feedback to drive early product development. This article focuses on uncovering essential product features by leveraging the intelligence of your customers. So, when you have no product, and just a dream of the solution, how do you pull back from that dream and leverage your early users to help you identify what’s essential?
My answer is you treat early feature requests as if you’re furnishing an empty apartment.
7 Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
From Black Web 2.0
I thought I’d share a few things that I learned during my time at AlphaLab to hopefully encourage you to apply to participate in one these programs. The experience is incredible, and the knowledge you gain will be invaluable.
Lesson 1: Even a small amount of operating capital from an investment can be extremely useful.
Outsiders often look at the $15-$25,000 provided by startup programs as being no where near enough money to get a business off the ground. They’re wrong. You sure can’t live off $15,000, but if startup capital was purely for living, it would be called “welfare”. While you may use some of the investment to live a “Ramen noodle” lifestyle, its primary purpose is to support the development of your business. You have no idea how many things creep up that need to be paid for when starting a company. You’ll need to lease a server. You’ll need to buy computers or software manuals. You’ll need to pay contractors to do some dirty work. You’ll even need to pay an attorney to look at the document that GETS you the investment. If I had to pay $2,000 out of my pocket simply to incorporate, and get legal documents produced, I probably would have never started my business anytime soon. Or at least it would have stalled so I could first convince my wife I had a good idea, and then allow me to spend our money on that idea. Being able to chip away at a small five figure bank account to support the business operations is extremely helpful.
The Official Curriculum for Your Degree in Startups
If you’re like me, and you did not end up going to a college like Babson to learn how to be an entrepreneur, you basically winged it to get to where you are. Along the way, you probably learned how to become an entrepreneur through reading an interesting blog post, watching an inspiring video, or listening to a though-provoking podcast. I decided to create my own list of useful articles, videos, podcasts and books that I think are essential to starting your first Web startup on the right foot. I will arrogantly title this post The Official Curriculum for a Degree in Startups. No tuition fees required.
Is That New Feature a Deal Breaker, Deal Maker, Or No Big Deal?
Recently I’ve been working on reporting tools for The Resumator. I’ve learned non-profits that receive government funds above a certain amount must collect voluntary sex, race and disability data from applicants, and report this to the government. This told me that collecting equal employment opportunity (EEO) data would basically be a deal maker or deal breaker for many .orgs looking for an resume management system. Five months later, it’s just now about to be released. There’s a lesson here.
A Crystal Ball and a Time Machine
Late yesterday evening I completed my financial projections for today’s noon meeting with potential investor [REDACTED]. It took me a long time to learn to appreciate the importance of financial projections because in my first month I had paying customers and what looked to be a potential hit on my hands. If there’s three things an entrepreneur wants, it’s revenue right now, a crystal ball to see the future, and a time machine to change the past.
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