This has been my biggest struggle.

You imagine the potential buyer as a hyper-critical power-user that will expect everything to be perfect.

But what if the above isn't true at all? What if the potential buyer is buying something more abstract? Like a solution to a problem; or even the chance at future resolution of a painful problem?

And what if they aren't power users? But just need basic help today that could grow into something better tomorrow?

Like, what if they just need a partner to help them solve a painful part of their work, and would be willing to put up with a lot of incomplete stuff to get that?

In that case, reaching out to them to "sell" them in the early days is basically saying "Hey, I'm starting to build XYZ that solves problem ABC. My goal is that it would help by doing DEF. Do you have that problem? I'm early on in the process, and looking for lots of feedback from potential users. Would you be interested in checking out my prototype / designs / thinking on this?"

That doesn't seem "soul-wrenching" or disingenuous or anything like that. It feels very authentic. You're making yourself somewhat vulnerable and portraying yourself as eager to learn and help.

IMO early stage entrepreneurship consists of finding a problem bad enough that non-trivial amount of people say "sure, let's talk" to that pitch and then working with those early users to build something useful.

I am an engineer and tinkering with tech brings me pleasure from creating, I crave mental stimulation, and I get immense satisfaction from havingright things in right places”. Polishing the code is like polishing the car engine for a petrolhead.

But those are my problems and triggers. I am feeding _my_ needs, then implicitly expect other people to give me _their_ money for doing this. Because look how hard I toiled! Yet many people do not care how polished their car engine is. And I have never seen clean code that was generating revenue.

The critical shift was to accept that people and have needs I don’t have, and they are desperate to solve them. And their professional lives are often painful - I get frustrated when I spend a day with almost any professional outside of tech. “This is the shit you have to put up with to get anything done??!” I haven’t had that problem since teens, if ever, and I can fix it. Automatically, empathy takes over, and I want to rescue them from the daily dread. So I wire together a minimal app that will make them glow with delight for 6 months, and they’ll give me dollars in return. Today was a good day, because two strangers supported each other and did not focus entirely on themselves.

If it were up to me, everyone would get a juicy steak. But when going fishing it’s more effective to bring worms.

This is hard for a certain class of problems, though- ones where people have to be convinced that the (1) there is a problem and (2) they should care about doing something about it. The first (modern) electric cars and the first home computers come to mind.

But that's really just a nitpick. I believe your point overall is correct- you're selling a solution or a dream.

I’ve worked with “seasoned” business experts, MBA’s who run multimillion dollar companies themselves, etc, who had a problem with this just out of principal. I once put up a website for a personal startup project with a “give us your email and we’ll send you the white paper” form — and the white paper didn’t exist (although the raw data that would be used to produce the paper did). When one of my mentors who was examining the website wanted to see the white paper, and I said “it doesn’t exist (yet), I just want people to show me that they are interested in it, otherwise this project is not really solving a big enough problem. So far nobody has requested to see it.”... they were LIVID. They could never trust me again after that, even after I tried to explain the reasoning.

So what if the first person asks for it and it takes a day or two to arrive? If only one person ever asks for it, it’s not a big enough problem anyway. But the mentor was seeing it from the perspective of how it would look if they did that in their multi-million-dollar company with their fortune 100 clients. But their rules did not apply for my situation. My situation was that I don’t even have a profitable company with customers. That I want to build things that people want, and the sooner I can figure out it’s not worth pursuing, the sooner I can move on to other ventures. So if during this journey I create a white-paper request button, and nobody ever clicks it, did it even exist?

It's the distinction between building something you've built before and architecting a new bridge or building. The latter is a creative effort with lots of variables that are extraordinarily hard to pin down into estimates that would be acceptable in spec house construction.

I have a friend that is like he's born for being in sales. He loves money and have almost no moral qualms when it comes to selling (but paradoxically have a heart of gold when it comes to charity and being nice to people).

Some people actually enjoy making lofty promises for money. I guess that's part of why being in a team is a good idea.

So the proper sequence is:

    1. Sell.
    2. Build.
    3. Pitch to investors.
    4. Repeat with more resources.

I'm curious about 1 before 2. Any attempt I've made in the past to understand market interest without having something that people can actually touch has always been really squishy. People aren't that interested to talk, when you do they always say something like 'well, sure, I guess that sounds interesting'. People that seem really interested usually don't have enough bandwidth for a beta product evaluation, even though they will say they are really excited and want to help. Often, product uptake comes from an unexpected direction/vertical, just by accident.

So while in principle getting customer-based design information up front is ideal, in practice it seems like you don't get that much no matter how much you try.

Maybe you're suggesting iterating on 1 and 2 until you feel like you have a solid case for 3?

I think that is why point 1 is "Sell," not "Interview" or "Imaginary sell." For example, some people put up a web page, run some ads, and have a complete signup process that once the CC is entered they get a "thanks for your interest- we'll be in touch when we get it built and by the way we didn't really charge your CC."

We've had discussions before on this board about whether or not that's ethical, IIRC.

I think the question boils down to: would you be willing to spend the next few years of your life on a 'well, sure, I guess that sounds interesting'?

There are all kinds of people. Early adopters are usually who a startup would want to start off with. If you can’t find even a few people who are excited about the value that your nonexistent product would add to their life (not even yourself as a user?), should you be excited about building it?

Money talks. You want people who are excited enough about what you’re building to give you money for a nonexistent product/service. Via Preorders, kickstarters, etc. Words can be cheap, but once they’ve bought in you can value their feedback.

I know I could solve whatever problem it is by leveraging a lot of my existing patterns and code. Once you know enough about a domain the coding and configuration becomes an afterthought.

Developers rarely know what users really want in advance. Hell, even users don't know what users really want. Re-writes are time consuming (and, to me, boring), it is easier to do the minimal amount of work first, demo that, take feedback, and then build it out.

However, going into this you need to have faith in yourself that you can deliver something good, and on time. If you have that confidence in yourself that you can deliver the functionality expected in a reasonable time frame, you can possibly be more comfortable selling ahead of your delivery schedule.

For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6reLWfFNer0

It's pretty good so far

Note, if you were a marketing person your lesson would be correct: you find the idea that someone will pay for and build it, then you HIRE the technical people who can build it. Marketing people are great at figuring this out.

The above are two very different, but successful approaches to creating a business, with different results. The technical first approach asks "what can technology do" and creates the next revolution. The marketing first approach ask what will people pay for, and creates the next evolution. Both are very valid approaches that can lead to riches. It is very common - even in business schools that should know better - it not recognize that a technical approach can work.

Even if you have a revolutionary idea, and even if you can build it, it's still a waste of time if nobody will buy it. No matter how revolutionary your idea, you can try marketing it. If you are eventually going to sell it via a website, just build that website. If you're eventually going to sell it in person, just sell it in person. If you need a video demo, just make the demo. Then see what people do.

There are two reasons for this. The obvious reason is that you can save years of your life building something that nobody will pay for. But the subtle reason is that finding out what people actually want will usefully inform what you build. You can spend those years building the revolutionary product that people will buy, rather than the not-on-target product that they won't.

The techniques for this are not hard, and the Lean Startup literature has plenty to get people started. E.g., the Alvarez book on Lean Customer Development: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Customer-Development-Building-Cu...

(And this is not to say that people shouldn't obsessively build things that interest them. I like doing that. It's a great way to learn and explore. But they shouldn't pretend that's a good way to start a business, any more than amateur musical noodling in one's basement is likely to produce the next #1 pop hit.)

I'm working on a thing now which no one believes is possible in the AI space (and to be honest I didn't either).

So I built a tech demo which proved to myself that it really does work.

Now I do the "I'm doing XXXX", get the cynical "yeah right" look, but the idea is interesting enough that people are prepared to see the 30 second demo.

The demo is pretty cool.

After the demo I've had people ask if they can invest, without me asking, and I think every person I've demoed to thinks they would either buy it or know someone who would.

So I'd caution that not all advice is correct in every situation.

From what you say, you did some technical exploration (which again, I'm all for). Then you didn't make a full product, ujust a 30-second demo. Next you went and tested the "people want this" hypothesis. That sounds very much in line with Lean Startup advice.

Great tech MUST be sold, once you have the proof of concept you must get someone great at marketing on board to help you sell it. There are plenty of great marketers who can help you with this (for a price...).

My only point is as a great technical person you start with getting it working before trying to sell it. Once it is working great marketing people will come on board and help you sell it - that is partially a matter of finding customers and partially a matter of making you admit those hard rough edges need to be fixed.

For most product ideas, the key question isn't, "Is this possible to build?" It's, "Will enough people buy it to make a sustainable business?"

That is to say, the greater risk of failure comes from lack of demand, not lack of technical competence. The greater risk should generally be addressed first.

This is compounded by the fact that it's usually much easier to test the "people will buy X" hypothesis than the "I can build X" hypothesis. Or, put differently, the cost of reducing market risk is usually lower than reducing technical risk.

Furthermore, even if we're in the rare case of working on something where technical risk is significant, we generally don't need to get a real, working product to reduce that risk sufficiently. Some technical experiments are generally sufficient to put us back in the realm of, "Yes, we can make that product."

As a technical person you are better at getting it working so spending a couple weeks getting a working prototype is worth the effort, it might be ugly but it builds trust that it can work. If the idea is radical your potential investors/customers won't believe it is possible.

The real problem is until you have enough paying customers to pay everybody you are living on borrowed money. How you best borrow the money is the only question, and the answer if different for every situation. Some ideas are so obvious when seen that you can get millions from investors. Some ideas will get the "that ain't possible" reaction until you show them the finished product when they will beg you to take their money. Some ideas look cool but nobody is willing to actually pay for them. Some ideas are cool and will generate sales - but never enough to pay for all the people required to make the product. You have to figure out where you are.

This starts from the (potentially flawed) assumption that your great idea is actually saleable. If you build something and prove that there is at least some market then great. But you might build something and find that there is no market.

If instead you start with the market, then you are unlikely to be pointlessly building something.

The opposite approach has equal risks: you start with a saleable idea that just isn't possible (or is possible but the costs are more than the sales will ever cover).

Either way it is critical have points where you decide if further effort is worth the investment. You have to make some investment in time/effort/money to find that out, if the answer is the product isn't worth the investment all your efforts to this point are wasted.

Ten years later, that first startup scored a 100M funding round.