Your startup’s top priorities. | Hacker News Reader

Your startup’s top priorities.

tomasztunguz.com

87 pointsttunguz16 comments

Is there an "after you built your product"?

I kinda thought that you only stop building your product when you go out of business.

Having been at this stage awhile, I've come to the same conclusions. Also validated by almost every VC, Angel, etc. has said the same thing...over...and...over...

(BTW, enjoyed the concise writing that was too the point, which gave me time to even write a comment about it.)

This is a great read, short and straight to the lesson. This has simplified my priorities and it will help me group my to-dos and essential tasks.

Seems focused on ad-based or freemium business models. Would like to know his thoughts on top 3 priorities for a company selling product directly.

I'm the author. Nice to meet you. What do you mean by selling product directly? ecommerce? or enterprise sales? or something else?

He is refering to paid-only (or mostly-paid) SaaS a la 37Signals products, etc.

We're building a SaaS product without freemium and the three points apply perfectly in our case.

I'm curious to know what you consider most important?

It really depends on the stage of the company. But generally I think engagement is first, then distribution, then monetization.

You don't really get a sense for engagement until your product is being used on a large scale. That's the true test for engagement. That's why distribution should come first.

I co-founded Everlane (http://www.everlane.com). I'd agree with these three priorities, although I wouldn't use those words. A customer who comes back to your site, does N things, but doesn't purchase is telling you something -- you just have to be clever enough to find out what that is.

But decoupling engagement from revenue puts you in a mindset that leads to more interesting product decisions. For example, the "love it" button on Modcloth might only be weakly correlated with revenue for the people loving it, but has secondary effects when it comes to sharing on Facebook (distribution) and filtering products by "love" for other customers (monetization for those other users).

More simply: a user who never buys a single thing but shares your site with 1,000 people who then do buy something is really valuable. A revenue-only mindset makes it hard to see that.

I'd prioritize retention over engagement, personally, or maybe the author means engagement in a way that encompasses retention.

It seems an interesting exercise to do, and keeps you aware of your long term achievements. Focused and aware. I'll definitely try that.

I love the simplicity in this. Eloquent and seemingly effective. Cheers.

Interesting article! Of course, it does begin with: "Once you have built your product and it’s in the market..."

What are your thoughts here on top three priorities BEFORE this stage?

(I would say,

1. Don't give up equity, keep your credibility, don't be full of hot air. (If a dozen people think you're kind of cofounding this with them and your paperwork is a mess, you're dead on arrival!)

2. Keep dedicated and always do SOMETHING that moves you closer to "Once you have built your product and it’s in the market..." (I say this as a technical single founder, obviously it goes double if you CAN'T do the technical side.)

3. Reach out and network, even well ahead of product or need for money or in the case of talent, for this particular talent. No one will look down on you for saying, "You know I'm nowhere near the normal time to seek funding (or to bring you on board, or whatever), but I thought I would mention that I'm working on this..." Do welcome any feedback. The fact that you're putting feelers out even while it's too early can't bite you (unless you're always full of hot air, see #1), as if nothing else (I expect) you can refer back to this contact instead of taking up contact totally 'cold', when the time does come.

What do you guys think? Of course, these days #2 can be "Move your team to the Bay Area. Get funded. Funded for what? We'll cross that road when we get there, sheesh!"

Not that there's anything wrong with that...)

It depends on what you're building. In our particular case. When I started with the idea of building a startup for the first time, I did all of those things. Built a network, looked for mentors, investors etc. While trying to keep our equity with us.

After a few months I concluded it was all a waste of time. Having a good product overshadows everything else by a huge margin. If you have a great product, you'll have better leverage for negotiating equity, you'll find it easier to find partners, mentors and networking. Everything magically gets easier.

Now I understand that, for our product, our priority should be 99% to build something awesome. Everything else is so little it's insignificant. We don't even waste our energy with those anymore. If we do build a great product, then the other ones will come.

But of course, it depends on what you're building. Not everyone is trying to build something complex. Maybe your product relies on getting a few key clients you depend on, then go after them. Maybe you didn't even validate your idea yet, so go make sure you're building the right thing before wasting time with it. There are too many "ifs" and I don't anyone will give you a good generic idea without knowing exactly what you're doing. So if you are on that stage where you're not sure what to do and you need help. I'd say networking and look for mentorship that will guide your team. Then just build something awesome.

Before you have built product (and after you have determined that you are building something like the right product), your top 3 priorities are:

    1. Build product
    2. Build Product
    3. Build Product

This is really the top priority: determine that you are building something like the right product.

In many cases, you don't even need to build much/any product to figure this out sufficiently.

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