Why you should get customers before building your MVP

Earlier this year I launched a product, it got several hundred sign ups, and I eventually pulled it from production because no one was using it. I spent a significant amount of time developing the product and deciding to pull the plug wasn’t an easy decision.

Looking back, I can see that I should have gotten customers BEFORE starting development on the app. Here are a few of the reasons why.

1. The simplest reason, maybe there’s not real need for your product.
2. You can’t build something without knowing who you’re building it for
3. You’re going to save lots of time and money. And even better, be on the path to profitability faster.

The simplest reason maybe there’s not a real need for your product

The hard truth is there may not be a serious enough need for your product for it to become a sustainable business. Even products that’ve been validated fail all the time, there’s no silver bullet to knowing whether your idea and product will be a success but if you don’t spend the time validating your idea then your almost certainly going to end up with something different than what your audience needs.

You can’t build something without knowing who your building it for

If you don’t have a clear customer in mind, then how the hell are you supposed to know how to help them? Just because they’re facing a problem doesn’t mean your solution is the right one for them. Making the effort the speak with different target audiences early on will help you identify where you should be focusing your time, otherwise you can end up shouting into an endless void.

Spend time talking with potential customers, learn about them and the problem they’re facing. How can you offer them something different than existing solutions? How can you make sure using your product doesn’t interrupt or further complicate their current workflow or process?

ASK THEM! Don’t ever make assumptions, ask your audience and learn from them.

If you get to know your audience on a personal level and build relationships with them, they’ll be more likely to support you through tough times. We’re all human and the majority of people want to see others succeed, give them a reason to cheer for you as a person and not just the business. A loyal and passionate audience will help bring in new loyal and passionate customers faster than any paid marketing campaigns.

You’re going to save lot’s of time and money. Even better you’ll be on the path to profitability faster.

I started developing the app January 2020, launched in July, and took down the app September 2020. Lots of that time was spent debating features, user experience and other things that are kind of meaningless in hindsight.

Talking with customers early on would have helped me identify what’s important to them and prioritize those things. It also would have helped me work through parts of the business or user experience that weren’t clear to me.

I read lot’s of articles on validating product ideas and heard stories of founders who had worked for projects on years only to launch and realize no one is going to use it. I was passionate about the problem I was trying to solve and fell into the trap of thinking “That won’t happen to me”. I should have taken a a step back and asked myself why? Why won’t that happen to you? What proof do you have? If I would have asked myself these questions it could have saved me months.

What’s next?

I’m in the process of repositioning the app and validating 3 different options. In my next few posts I’ll walk you through each option and the steps I’m taking to validate the product and get customers before spending any more time writing code.

Follow me on Twitter as I continue to document my journey and lessons learned from projects I’m working on.