“Build something people want”

When building is easy, we should spend significant more time to figure out that “something people want”.

There are multiple approaches to do this:

- Do customer development before building.

Jason Cohen famously interviewed 50 potential customers before writing a single line of code.

- Build an extremely simple (but lovable) version of the product and start talking to early customers.

This is my favorite approach since I can build the basic version very fast.

And I find it easier to talk to users about something that can be play with.

- Solve your own problem.

Many successful products have come from founders scratching their own itch.

If you're experiencing a pain point, chances are others are too.

Beware, it could be a trap.

Even with this approach, seek external feedback as soon as you can.

What is your favorite approach?