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Planning the next product

With a friend I just launched our first product. So far so good... our background is more development and so we first built it and then started to look into all the other stuff. I guess this way is not ideal but you have to learn somehow :slightlysmilingface:

I have 1-2 more ideas in my head but wanna try out something I have learned along the way so far. So I came up with kind of a "timeline" for my next attempt:

Create a landing page and ask some people (like here) to validate the initial idea 2.Assuming the idea could work, I would try to make my dev process a bit more public... like posting updates on wip.chat/IndieHackers. This hopefully already gets some people interested and leads to some feedback

Build MVP

Launch Beta and try to get some first users and feedback

Improve until ready to launch

Do the usual launch stuff like posting PH, HN, reddit etc.

Of course this is somewhat simplified... but I guess this could work better than just building and then figuring out how to get someone interested :grin:

Any feedback on this?

Felix
@soupdiver

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While this definitely seems like a step in the right direction, it still seems like you're too caught up in your own world as a maker rather than looking at things from a customer's perspective.

Sharing your development process is interesting to other makers and helps you build your network within our community, but it won't do you much good in terms of attracting customers unless those happen to makers too. Are they?

As for getting featured on Product Hunt, Hacker News, etc those are hard to predict, unsustainable long-term traffic sources, and not necessarily where your customers are. Again, it depends on who your customers are.

Rather than starting with the idea, I'd start with the problem you're trying to solve and the audience you're trying to reach. Building the product is probably the easy part. Do people really have this problem though? And can you reach these people at scale?

I'd try and answer these questions first. Just go and talk to them to understand their problem, how they currently solve it, etc.

I also suggest listening to the recent Indie Hackers interview with Julian Shapiro. Towards the end they talk about choosing the right idea to work on.

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Felix
@soupdiver

While this definitely seems like a step in the right direction, it still seems like you're too caught up in your own world as a maker
Likely true... making my first steps and I think this is how you start. You slowly have to get out of your comfort zone.

Sharing your development process is interesting to other makers and helps you build your network within our community, but it won't do you much good in terms of attracting customers
Makes sense. For me personally, when I have someone to talk to (a bit) about a project, I easier stay involved with it. Maybe this is a personal "hack" then :D

Rather than starting with the idea, I'd start with the problem you're trying to solve and the audience you're trying to reach.
Like boiling down the problem and possible solution to 1-2 sentences and approach potential future customers and ask if they agree to have this problem at all?

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Felix
@soupdiver

I continued to think about this a bit..

Do people really have this problem though? And can you reach these people at scale?

So (cold) emailing, asking people at meetups/Twitter/..., reaching out to old employers maybe etc. to figure out if "they" have a similar idea about the "problem" as I do and would be interested in a service to solve that problem right?

I would think this is easier when I have a simple MVP to demonstrate what I have in mind. Am I wrong with this or should I prepare to give a quick demo?

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