And how do you find these potential customers to ask?
This is the reason you often see older (person's age) entrepreneurs more successful because they've already created network of trust, or people who have exited multiple companies...getting intros to potential clients for customer development is stupidly easy because you're already pre-sold because of those relationships.
That being said, I've found in my career that as long as you're willing to listen to early potential customers most individuals of any size company are motivated to tell you all about their issues. Trust me, get someone on the phone and they'll air all of their dirty laundry. You gain trust with those early potential customers (and eventually payments) by being a good listener - replay back what you heard, explain how you're going to fix it, and then deliver.
As Steve Blank says "There are no facts inside your building, so get outside". I'm going to generalize here, but I think the reason too may technically minded entrepreneurs fail is because they're simply too introverted to get outside.
"We started with cold outreach to creators, Indie Hackers, and startup founders, who might be interested in our product." – Marie from Tally ($24k/mo)
Depending on the product, some communities can be also helpful, but this probably doesn't work for everything. It did for Julien who is building NotionForms though (now $11k MRR): https://microfounder.com/startups/notionforms
When he screams after getting hung up on--that's the 150th call he made that day. They were rude as shit with him. That rejection is too lightly touched on.
And it's like a club for a novat after you ask every girl to dance and nothing, then go ask every girl to dance again. Wander. No validation. Get their contempt.
He didn't add up to shit in the eyes of VCs. Nothing. His resume was just...and he didn't have chapitas, badges of eg graduating from the right schools, and then a smooth up-and-to-the-right career trajectory that had to trace an exponential curve. Dropouts were nothing then, like you could open up a photo booth be a hippie or yes be an inventor--sort of in the late seventies, very limited, not open to everybody by that point like in the 1920's.
VCs only got more open-minded by people like Jobs--him more than absolutely anybody--opening those skulls with the rippling effect of figurative kicks to the ass. Missing out. Getting bounced. And for a few with already open minds, absurd riches.
Work the club.
Targeting Marketing execs? Send them an email.
[0] - www.reciped.io
There's a huge difference between going in and going "try my app" and "hey I'm an app developer, building this thing, and I'm wondering if people here would find X or Y more useful".
Do it the first way and you'll get banned. Do it the second way and you'll get people asking to try it.
That way the person saw your product, saw the price, and was ready to buy it.
If you don't have that, you can "import" that knowledge but that will take a lot of effort and time, and you risk making some very wrong assumptions early on. And IMHO there are no shortcuts, to understand your market you have to walk a mile in their shoes, and if you haven't already done so before starting the startup, doing that will take out a big chunk of your runway. So it's not about some specific activities, but about choosing a project that fits your team or a getting together a team that fits your project.
so many ideas fail because they cannot get through this grind.
I got my customers from a simple tweet that was retweeted. It's literally rolling dice because when I posted the same thing years ago there was no response.
I wonder if successful people just got lucky at rolling dices early on that puts them in a good mentality position to build their chips for the bubbles in a poker tournament.